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Hearthstone Grand Tournament Release Date

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HearthStone Grand Tournament Logo

Attention all Hearthstone fans! The release date for the Grand Tournament has been officially announced by Blizzard. The latest update to Blizzard’s wildly successful online collectable card game, Hearthstone, will officially arrive on August 24.

  • The only exception to this date is Asia, which will be able to play Hearthstone, Grand Tournament on August 25.

The Grand Tournament will feature an brand new game mechanic called Inspire. When you use your Hero Power you will trigger Inspire which in turn will provide you with a benefit like stat gains, additional minions, new abilities and much more. What happens with inspire is all based on the description of the particular card you’re playing. Ultimately, Inspire will now give you more reasons to use your Hero Power and provide a new way for you to defeat your enemies.

Grand Tournament will bring with it 132 new cards to the game, which will now provide players with a reason to spend all of that gold and dust that they have been hanging on to. Along with the new cards there will be a new board to play on and a new game mechanic called Jousting. This new mechanic will have players draw and reveal one card from their decks, the player who draws the higher cost card will be the winner. If you drew the joust card and win, then you will gain the additional benefit from that card’s description.

This is Hearthstone’s second major expansion and it looks to be a lot of fun. For complete information head to Blizzard’s Hearthstone Grand Tournament page.

How to View FPS in Diablo III Reaper of Souls

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Diablo3ROSLogo FPS

Are you having any issues with lag in Diablo III Reaper of Souls for PC or Mac ? You may want to check on your frames per second or (FPS).  This information is normally not displayed by default but it’s really easy to enable and you can do it without any add-ons.

  • If you’re playing Diablo III, during gameplay, you can simply press Control+ R on your keyboard to view your FPS. This also works the same way for Mac Keyboards.

As far as resolving issues with drops in frame rate, you might want to first try changing some of your graphics settings to see if there are any noticeable improvements. You may also want to make sure that you have the latest drivers for your specific graphics card. Another good troubleshooting technique is to check Task Manager if your running Windows or the Activity Monitor on Mac OS X. These programs allow you to ensure that there are no other programs running in the background that could degrade the performance of your game. If your running the game on a standard mechanical hard drive, then you may want to check to see if your disk is in good health or if  it needs to be defragmented.

Another possible cause if lag in Diablo III Reaper of Souls is network lag. Diablo III is an online game and is therefore susceptible to poor quality networks and slower bandwidth speeds. Network lag can also feel a lot like hardware performance lag as far as FPS go. You should always check your internet connection when you’re having issues, it might not even be your hardware that’s causing the issue.

These are just a few basic steps you can take to start troubleshooting your game performance. These basic system checks can be utilized for just about any game that your having issues with, not just Diablo III

Still having issues with the game? Need more answers? One of the best ways to get help is to try and get answers from the community on Blizzard’s forums. Here, you can get in touch with other gamers to get information about your problems and you may even get a response from Blizzard on the subject.

Star Wars Themed PS4 Announced

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At the D23 Expo in Anahiem California, Sony announced an official Darth Vader themed Playstation 4!
Darth Vader PS4 Star Wars ThemedThe console will be a part of two Star Wars themed bundles that will include a custom 500GB PS4 console and controller. The bundle will also include Star Wars Battlefront Deluxe Edition and a digital voucher to download Super Star Wars, Star Wars: Racer Revenge, Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter and BountyHunter. All of these classic games will include support for Trophies and have enhanced graphics.

 

PS4 Starwars Darth Vader Infinity BundleThe other Darth Vader themed PS4 bundle will include the Darth Vader console and controller along with Disney Infinity 3.0: Star Wars Edition. In addition to that, you will also receive the Disney Infinity Base, the Rise Against the Empire Play Set Pack featuring Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa figures and the Rise Against the Empire play set piece. If that wasn’t enough already you will also get a Boba Fett figure exclusive to Playstation and all of the classic games that are included in the other bundle.

These bundles will be available for purchase on November 17th, 2015 with pre-orders coming soon.

Star Wars Vader PS4 Controller

 

 

How to Play Diablo II on Windows 10 (Update)

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Running Diablo II on Windows 10 can be a little problematic so here is a quick guide to help smooth things out. This is an update to an earlier post that showed how to run Diablo II on Windows 8. Most of the the information here should carry over to Windows 10 quite well. If you run into any issues, please comment below so that the community or myself can help you out.

DII LOD Cover Art Diablo II Lord Of Destruction
Diablo II Lord of Destruction Cover Art (Blizzard Entertainment®)

This quick “how to” assumes that you have already installed and patched the latest version of Diablo II LOD on your system. If you need patch information you can obtain it through Blizzard’s official patch site.

Here are the steps to take to remove lag and other strange issues with Diablo II LOD on Windows 10.

Before launching the game, right click on the game’s shortcut and select “Properties”, then select the “Compatibility” tab.

Once on the Compatibility tab, select the following options:

  • Check “Run this program in compatibility mode for” and set the value to “Windows XP SP 2/3”
  • Check “Reduced Color Mode” and set to “16-bit (65536) Color”
  • Check “Disable display scaling on high DPI settings”
  • Optional “Run this program as administrator”

Once you dial in these settings click Apply and then OK.

The next step is crucial if you want to reduce or eliminate all of the glitching and lagging that is known to plague Diablo II LOD on Windows 10.

Obtain a 3DFX Glide Wrapper, this is a little application that will allow you to use the Glide interface with Diablo II LOD. I have found that GLIDE3-to-OpenGL Wrapper by Sven Labusch seems to work the best out of any I have tried so far.

Download the files from Sven’s site and read the “ReadMe.txt” file. This will contain the most current instructions for installing and setting up the wrapper. Be sure to re-run the video test after the wrapper is installed and set it to use Glide.

** Note: You Will Also Need to apply compatibility settings to run the Diablo II Video Test (D2VidTst.exe) * *

 

That’s it! Hopefully you will be successful in your attempts to get Diablo running smooth. Just follow the directions closely and have fun!

 

(UPDATE (3-15-21)

 Great news! It appears that in the most recent versions of Windows 10, you may not need to follow this guide. Also, Blizzard is getting ready to release a remastered version of this incredible game. More details from Blizzard.

Blizzard Announces Overwatch

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Mercy_Overwatch

Blizzard Entertainment has just announced an all new franchise Overwatch, a first person shooter based on team play. The first video is an awesome cinematic that gives us a glimpse into the minds of some of the new characters you will be playing in Overwatch. The second video showcases gameplay, which I have to say looks immediately engaging  and the visuals have a clean and unique artistic styling that is quite refreshing.

Below I have posted the official press release. Head to Blizzard Entertainment for full details on the new first person shooter.


 

World premiere of brand-new Blizzard game universe at BlizzCon®

Show attendees go hands-on with Overwatch, running live on 600 BlizzCon PCs

Beta coming in 2015; sign-ups NOW LIVE at www.playoverwatch.com

ANAHEIM, Calif.—November 7, 2014—In front of a live crowd of more than 25,000 BlizzCon® attendees and an expected online audience numbering in the millions, Blizzard Entertainment today announced Overwatch™, a pick-up-and-play first-person shooter featuring an amazing cast of heroes and set in an all-new Blizzard game universe.

The action of Overwatch takes place in a technologically advanced, highly stylized future earth. In a time of global crisis, an international task force of soldiers, scientists, adventurers, and oddities known as Overwatch had come together to restore peace to a war-torn world. After many years, the group’s influence waned, and it was eventually disbanded. Overwatch might be gone now . . . but the world still needs heroes.

With an emphasis on accessibility and pure fun, Overwatch brings Blizzard’s signature easy-to-learn, hard-to-master gameplay to the FPS genre. Harnessing the power of their hero of choice, players will join forces in teams of six and battle each other across a range of futuristic global locations, from the hologram-lit streets of London to a bazaar in the shadows of a high-tech Egyptian pyramid. Every battlefield is iconic and built to highlight each character’s unique abilities, and fights can shift from streets to rooftops to open skies within the span of a breath.

“Overwatch is our take on a vibrant, near-future universe with amped-up characters and action-packed team-based gameplay,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “With every new Blizzard game, we look at our favorite aspects of a genre and put our own spin on things. Our goal with Overwatch is to create an awesome FPS experience that’s more accessible to a much wider audience while delivering the action and depth that shooter fans love.”

The heroes of Overwatch each bring their own distinct weapons and superabilities to bear. Here’s just a glimpse of the numerous heroes that will ultimately fill Overwatch’s rosters:

Tracer, a former British test pilot who shrugs at danger, can execute impossible acrobatic assaults thanks to her ability to teleport, drop energy bombs, and even reverse time.
Reinhardt, a hulking German soldier in battle armor, can charge great distances and pin his enemies to a wall or slam the ground with his rocket hammer to knock them off their feet.
Hanzo, a bow-wielding Japanese mercenary, has the ability to scale walls with his bare hands, fire off a tracking device that illuminates nearby enemies for his team, and unleash a huge spirit dragon that does grievous damage to all enemies in its path.
Symmetra, an Indian architech, manipulates light and energy to shield her allies and damage her enemies—and she can turn the tide of any battle by building a device that instantly transports her teammates to the front lines.
While each hero represents a formidable force on their own, players can amplify their potential by assembling into a well-balanced team and creatively combining powers. No matter which hero or playstyle they prefer, players will be able to team up and accomplish the incredible in Overwatch.