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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.

Blizzard Announces World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor

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Day one at Blizzcon 2013 has brought with it some awesome announcements including the reveal of a new World of Warcraft expansion, Warlords of Draenor, which will dive deep into Warcraft history and allow players to relive the past. We will get to see the world of Draenor as it was long ago and before the orcs first invaded Azeroth. 

With the new expansion comes many new features including a new world to explore, Draenor. For those who don’t know much about World of Warcraft lore, Draenor is essentially Outland before the orc invasion.

Players will also get a chance to level up to level 100, but don’t worry if you haven’t even made it to level 90 yet as Blizzard has decided to allow you to instantly take a character to level 90 to catch up and play the new content.

Other features include:

  • New Character models.
  • New Battlegrounds.
  • New class talents and permanent ability bonuses.
  • New Heroic versions of classic dungeons.
  • New Raids and a more refined questing system.

The heroes of Azeroth are on the verge of a war that will reforge the fate of two worlds. Announced today at BlizzCon® 2013, World of Warcraft®: Warlords of Draenor™,the fifth expansion to Blizzard Entertainment’s acclaimed massively multiplayer online role-playing game, sends players to the world of Draenor at a pivotal moment in history to fight against and alongside legends from Warcraft’s brutal past.” – Blizzard Entertainment

To get complete details on the new World of Warcraft Expansion head over to Blizzard’s Warlords of Draenor site now.

 

Diablo III Expansion Confirmed

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Yes, it is official a Diablo III expansion is in progress. Mike Morhaime of Blizzard Entertainment confirmed the expansion during an earnings call.diablo3logo

The details are limited at this time and we don’t have any hints towards how much progress has been made on the new expansion, but knowing Blizzard’s reputation for releasing games when they are “ready”, it’s probably safe to say it’s going to be a little while. Opinion of Diablo III is split down the middle as many fans were disappointed in some aspects of the game. The lack of an offline gameplay mode was disappointing  for long time Diablo fans who didn’t want to have to deal with server issues just to play the game by themselves.

The controversial real money auction house (RMAH), has some gamers claiming that is takes away one of the major incentives to keep playing the game, finding loot. Diablo III has seen some improvement through the release of patch 1.0.5, but something still feels likes it’s missing. I think that Blizzard should move their focus away from some of the previously mentioned features and really fine-tune the gameplay experience itself. Hopefully we will see this next expansion reinvigorate Diablo with not only new lands and lore to explore but adding or removing, some key features.

diablo screenshot 1

Regardless of how you feel about Diablo III, Activision has stated that the game is the #1 bestselling game in dollars and units on the PC in the U.S. and Europe since it’s launch. I had a feeling the game would sell well considering how many players still love Diablo II and it’s expansion, Lord of Destruction. The real question is whether or not those same people who originally bought the game will continue to stick with Diablo and purchase the new expansion.

As always we will keep you informed on the latest details surrounding the D3 expansion.