Everyone has a fighting chance
Hearthstone’s latest expansion, The Grand Tournament, has only been live for about a week now, but there are already some clear winners and losers emerging from all the chaos. This is by no means determinative of where things will be for the rest of the TGT meta, but it’s fun to take a look at things as they are now nonetheless.
The chompacabra is out of the bag: WildStar will be going free-to-play on September 29. After announcing the switch back in May, Carbine Studios feels that the update is almost ready for prime time.
According to several members of the Pathfinder Online community who participated in a special event via Mumble chat, Paizo is retaking control of Pathfinder Online and that the Goblinworks office has been closed. Additionally, listeners report that Ryan Dancey has been let go and that Lisa Stevens is now the CEO. All but three employees of Goblinworks have been released as well and the remaining personnel are being retrained.
It’s always a good thing to see a company taking risks. It happens so rarely anymore with companies simply releasing the same game year after year. But can you blame them? It’s a safe and easy way to make money, and the chances of failure are low. But Runic Games, the makers of Torchlight and Torchlight II, are attempting to buck that trend with their new game, Hob.
This week on Game On, Chris and Brax mull over EverQuest 2’s new prison servers. By demanding a subscription and not offering customer service, are they going too far with their power? The hosts also talk about Pillars of Eternity, how Marvel Heroes (2016!) has stolen their hearts, how WoW’s next expansion is likely coming before June, and more!
With the rollout of The Elder Scrolls Online’s Imperial City on PC this week, this is the beginning of new content arriving in the game for the price of a subscription or a paid unlock. We’ve debated whether or not a subscription for ESO is currently worth it on here before, and ultimately, time will tell what players think, but some new plans from Zenimax may add room to discuss the idea of value further.
Star Wars: Uprising is one of a handful of new MMOs making their way to the mobile scene this year. I know we’re all PC enthusiasts here at MMORPG.com, but let’s make no bones about it: if the mobile gaming world can make a solid MMO, I’ll gladly take notice and play the crap out of it. Luckily, with Daniel Erickson at the helm, Kabam RPG seems to be doing just that with Star Wars: Uprising. Oh, and it’s the first game coming out that is tied directly into the new canon.
Destiny fans looking forward to the release of the first expansion, The Taken King, will want to tune into Bungie’s Twitch.tv channel tomorrow at 11:00 am Pacific / 2:00 pm Eastern for a special, and final, live stream event to showcase the new content. Fans will get a look at the Dreadnaught, looking for loot and checking out player-instigated public events.
Ubisoft has announced that Tom Clancy’s EndWar Online has officially kicked off its first round of closed beta testing after a successful alpha phase. The CBT will run from today through November and will feature two new commanders for each side, a new PvE ‘special operations’ mode, a VIP system and the usual list of bug fixes and feature enhancements.
Fans of ARK: Survival Evolved will want to tune into the game’s Twitch.tv channel at 2:00 pm Eastern / 11:00 am Pacific today to check out the finals of the Survival of the Fittest Unnatural Selection Tournament that will see winners sharing in $40,000 worth of prizes.