Blizzcon 2018: Out of Season April Fool's Spectacular
As we expected, Blizzcon 2018 was a bit of an off year....
Is Blizzcon going to be awesome or is this the Blizzcon of our discontent? Jarret from Watchpoint Radio joins the WoW! Talk! gang to go over what we can expect from Blizzard at their annual convention.
First, they talk about the Mike Morhaime to J. Allen Brack transition and how that might affect the company. Jarret doesn’t expect it will affect Overwatch, but Nick offers some examples of changes to WoW that may indicate the game is shifting in a different direction.
Next, Jarret dives into the state of Overwatch, talking about how the players tend not to understand the game, and how a certain player needs PVE Content or else the game population will decline. He also talks about how loot boxes have stalled as a revenue model.
Nick brings up Diablo and the lack of Diablo IV at Blizzcon. Harv mentions that maybe there will be a Diablo II remaster announced. They wonder if a mobile game would be acceptable to fans of the franchise, or if, despite Blizzard’s announcements, it is still on the way.
The gang gets into expectations for WoW, talking about Patch 8.1 and patch 8.2 (or 8.1.5?) They ponder new allied races. They also talk about WoW Classic, and how Jarret doesn’t expect WoW Classic to be popular, and everyone mostly agrees. They talk about the angst over the time-restricted demo. Jarret complains about smelting bullets back in vanilla WoW.
Nick rants briefly about Hearthstone, talking about how he thinks Ben Brode’s departure is affecting the state of the game, and its going to be some time before it will fully recover, much to the community’s chagrin.
Jarret talks briefly about Starcraft. Nick talks a little about Heroes. They have mild expectations for those games.
Then, the gang talks about the bands that were finally announced for Blizzcon: Lindsay Strling, Kristian Nairn, and Train. Nick points out that people are always disappointed in the band and although this set is more eclectic than usual, it really shouldn’t matter. He then rants about people complaining about the virtual ticket items and bands like those are the only parts of the Blizzcon tickets that matter.
Finally, they talk about some of the panels they are looking forward to, including the cosplay competition and some of the voice acting panels. They also talk about some of the esports championships that will be happening.
The Mash Those Buttons Team will be back next week with a full recap of everything announced at Blizzcon! See you then!
Hosts
Nick Zielenkievicz
Host of WoW! Talk! and The Tauren & The Goblin. Sometimes known as the Video Games Public Defender. Wants to play more Destiny and Marvel Heroes but WoW is all-consuming. Decent F2P Hearthstone player. Sad that he lost the Wii that had Wrecking Crew on it. Would be happy if the only game ever made was M.U.L.E. Gragtharr on Skywall-US. Garresque on Ravencrest-US.
Rei Liou
Rei is the 1 of the 5 SEELE members and the Ops Director at MTB. She enjoys anime, baking, cooking, gaming ( fighting, puzzle, rhythm, RPGs ), and spending WAY too much time working on spreadsheets. Current Games: Tales of Crestoria, WoW
Eric Knutson
Auto mechanic, car enthusiast, gamer, runner and almost never serious, Eric has been ditching responsibilities and gaming since age 7. His favorite genres are FPS and racing, although most of his game time is currently spent on WoW
Jarret Redding
Jarret is Executive Director as well as one of the founding members of Mash Those Buttons. He plays all types of games, but tends to lean more toward FPS, Stealth, and Combat games.
