star-wars-battlefront-dogfight-gamescomIssue 125:  All eyes were on Gamescom this week (well, they were if you were a gamer). Blizzard is probably the reason there is so much attention given to the conference this year, which many might have ignored in the past since its all the way over in Germany. I tend to start these posts prior to the actual events, unless all there is to talk about are the daily posts by the common places I read gaming news, so I have no titillating sentences to get you excited for the major headlines because, chances are, you already know what I am going to cover in this issue. 

I should warn you this post is going to be longer than normal because everyone is getting in on this years Gamescom, I guess they realized that if Blizzard is going to make a major announcement then there is going to be a much larger audience watching. We have news not only from Blizzard but also Microsoft, Bioware, Square Enix regarding various titles from X-Box games to Star Wars Battlefront, Final Fantasy, Star Wars The Old Republic and much much more! It’s almost hard to keep up with the news that keeps coming in!!! I think there is something here for everyone. KCGO.

Microsoft’s Gamescom Keynote

xbox-logoPosted 8.4.15 – Microsoft gave their gamescom keynote in Cologne to kick off Gamescom and, as you probably suspected, it was all about the X-Box One. I didn’t really see anything that totally blew my socks off. Windows 10 is coming to X-Box One (that deserves a DUH!), they unveiled something called a “Chatpad” which doesn’t sound all that cool to me, but I’m not a hardcore X-Box gamer (nor do I really want to buy an X-Box One right now). Their biggest focus seemed to be on the games they will be releasing next year. Check out a couple of those titles.
ars technica article

WoW Subs Drop Considerably

Posted 8.4.15 – Blizzard reported their Q2 earnings at their Gamescom press conference (no, this wasn’t the WoW press conference) and it looks like subscriptions have dropped quite a bit, down 1.5 million. I can’t remember the last time WoW had only a mere 5.6 million subscribers. Blizzard didn’t appear too concerned about it; in fact they seemed pretty confident that the expansion announcement and the upcoming movie will bring that number back up. Personally I think the fact that Warlords of Draenor was a pretty weak expansion is part of the reason for the big drop.
Blizzard Watch post

Heroes of the Storm Getting New Stuff

Posted 8.5.15 – Blizzard also teased HotS players with news of a new map and new heroes coming to the game “soon”. Kharazim the Monk, Rexxar and Artanis will be added as playable heroes and a new Eternal Conflicts map will be added called Infernal Shrines which will also have a Diablo theme to it. There is additional information as well as a trailer and other videos at the official preview page, but more details will be unveiled at the HotS panel on Friday.
Blizzard Watch post | Official Preview Page

Star Wars Battlefront’s Dogfights

Posted 8.5.15 – As if you weren’t already excited enough about the new Star Wars Battlefront, now they have added a dogfight mode where you can take to the skies in iconic Star Wars spacecraft and fight ship-to-ship above planets. There is a trailer and it looks damn awesome. I may have to find some money in the budget to snag this game come November 17th because it just looks spectacular. I hope it lives up to the hype!
polygon article

SWTOR Expansion Trailer

Posted 8.5.15 – Bioware is also making a presence at Gamescom and with them is a trailer for the SWTOR expansion Knights of the Fallen Empire. Man this makes me really want to re-subscribe and play again, just based on the big twist with Emperor Valkorian. It really has my Star Wars nerd senses tingling. Check out the trailer (you might need a towel).Ls-purple-black-core
Massively Overpowered post

Wait! There’s a FFXV Trailer???!

Posted 8.5.15 – I think Square Enix has made all the Final Fantasy fans out there squeal as they unveiled a trailer (already!) for their upcoming title Final Fantasy XV (that’s 15 for those that are not Roman Numerically inclined). But wait! There’s more!! They also announced that the game will be released next year, though they make it sound like it might be later in the year. They plan on announcing more details at PAX Prime which is at the end of August. Gamespot put together, what appears to be, a comprehensive list of details unveiled at Gamescom about FFXV.
Gamespot post | “DAWN” Trailer

New Overwatch Hero and Maps

Posted 8.5.15 – As if Blizzard doesn’t have enough to talk about, it wouldn’t be a gaming conference if they didn’t tease us with more about their upcoming shooter Overwatch. They have added a new playable hero: Lucio. He skates around on roller-blades (which allow him to skate along walls) and, using musical instruments, can heal or buff players. I’m curious if a musician is a legitimate class. Granted this game is merely a shooter and probably doesn’t really care about any kind of lore so I suppose that gives them the flexibility to create whatever class they want. I still want to know when the beta starts, damnit!
Blizzard Watch post

New DA:I DLC Coming Very Soon

Posted 8.5.15 – Bioware didn’t forget about you Dragon Age fans out there. They announced at Gamescom that new DLC for Dragon Age: Inquisition will be dropping … next week! The new content is called The Descent and is expected to be available to download August 11th. There is a trailer to watch and it will be available for all platforms (no PS4 delays this time). They didn’t mention a price but the previous DLC was $14.99 with 10% off for EA subscribers.
polygon post

Guild Wars 2 Expansion Update

Posted 8.6.15 – Everyone must be trying to compete to be center of attention as ArenaNet has come out and said, via twitter, that the next Expansion will be released before the end of the year. I think we all already knew about the Heart of Thorns expansion for Guild Wars 2 so the fact that it will be out in 2015 is the more exciting news. It’s first public beta testing will be August 7th through the 10th.
Massively Overpowered post

WoW: And The New Expansion Is …

Posted 8.6.15Legion – ashbringer-8lhH9GFeatures Include: Level Cap Increased to 110, New Zone: Broken Isles (from Warcraft 3), New PvP Honor System, Artifact Weapons (which look frakkin cool!!!), Class Order Halls (ex: The Silver Hand), and the coolest thing of all (which I called) new hero class the Demon Hunter!! Dalaran returns, which I think is cool because its probably my favorite city and the Emerald Nightmare and “glimpses of the Emerald Dream”!!! There is so much that is cool you will have to check out the links to see it all. This could be enough to turn subscription rates around! I’m excited as hell!!
MMO-Champion | Massively Overpowered | Official website

The MMO Times is a post I put together periodically of different MMO/gaming news articles that I think are interesting, fun and/or exciting. If you are interested in receiving these posts in an e-mail please click here to subscribe.