Monthly Archives: August 2017
Blizzard Launches Official PTR for Warcraft 3
The first official Public Test Realm (PTR) for Warcraft III is now live.
According to a post on Blizzard's official forums, the PTR features balance changes for start locations and the difficulty of creep camps, as well as adjustments to item diversity. Several other improvements, including new textures for map clarity have been added as well.
The forum post also highlights a few issues that Blizzard is aware of and working to fix, with improvements to matchmaking and latency on the horizon.
It's been fifteen years since the launch of Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. Just a couple months ago, a job listing surfaced, suggesting Blizzard may be looking to remaster Warcraft III and Diablo II, though job postings from Blizzard have used similar wording in the past. With StarCraft Remastered launching in a couple days, a Warcraft III remaster certainly doesn't appear to be outside the realm of possibility.
Cameron on Schwarzenegger’s Role in New Terminator
Arnold Schwarzenegger could very well be playing a human character in James Cameron's next Terminator movie, as the filmmaker has teased the possibility of him playing the person whose DNA was used as the basis for the T-800.
"You got to ask yourself, 'Why did they make these characters look and sound like Arnold?' There has to be a reason. So yeah, it has flashed through my mind that there has to have been a prototype," Cameron said in a Q&A with TheArnoldFans.
"There has to have been a guy who's DNA was harvested from, that they grew the organic outer layer that they grew the Terminator from...and that presumably was a real person at some point," Cameron added. He told fans to "stay tuned," noting there are still plenty of questions surrounding the Terminator's look that have to be answered.
Star Wars Battlefront 2 Space Battles Teased
Electronic Arts has announced it will showcase multiplayer space combat in Star Wars Battlefront II at this year's Gamescom.
In a post on EA's official blog, the publisher invited fans to tune in to Gamescom on August 21 at 9:30am PT/12:30pm ET/5:30pm UK (August 22 at 2:30am AET) for a new trailer and live gameplay reveal of the new Starfighter Assault mode.
The blog teases that, "Teams will face off in a swirling dogfight in the Fondor: Imperial Shipyard map, weaving around an Imperial Star Destroyer complete with speedy fighters, thundering bombers, distinct hero ships, and more."
How Competitive Pokemon Works
The 2017 Pokemon World Championships are just around the corner, from August 18-20. The competition will be streamed live online so trainers all around the world can tune in to see who is the very best, like no one ever was. With a prize pool of $500,000, expect competition to be fierce and exciting.
Watching competitive Pokemon is a bit different than playing with your friends in the living room. There are special rules that only come into play in tournaments, and different strategies that might look strange if you aren't into the competitive scene yourself. Don't worry though, we've got you covered with our guide to everything you need to know when watching both competitive video game (VGC) and trading card game (TCG) matches.
7 Pokemon Decks That Could Win the World Championships
With the 2017 Pokemon World Championships just around the corner, from August 18 to 20, we’ve got our eye on a handful of decks that could win the TCG tournament. The grand prize for the TCG Masters division tournament is $25,000, which is the largest payout of the whole championship (the VGC winner gets $10,000), making it a super competitive field.
Before we get to our picks for the top decks, we want to give a reminder of the craziness that happened last year. Everyone thought the metagame would be predictable with all the same popular decks that had been played all year long, but Japan’s Shintaro Ito surprised everyone when he took 1st place using Mega Audino-EX. That card was considered binder trash by most, but it also happened to be the silver bullet to last year’s metagame, allowing Ito to sweep the finals match in under 25 minutes. The lesson here is to take note of these powerful and popular decks, but also to always expected the unexpected.
IGN UK Podcast #396: The Defenders Special
This week Krupa and Joe have a lovely chat with The Defenders' showrunner, Marco Ramirez. But that's not all, as Joe, Rory, and Alex also cover some cool indie Switch games, Pokemon Go raiding (yes, Rory's been catching legendaries when he should be working, and Overwatch's Summer Games update.
Get your ears around this...
IGN UK Podcast #396: The Defenders Special
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PUBG: Total Player Killcount and Other Crazy Stats
Since it hit Steam Early Access in March 2017, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has attracted millions of players for a collective total of 10 million games played so far. With number of minutes played soaring well into the billions and max concurrent users impressively high for a newer Early Access game, the Battle Royale-inspired massively multiplayer online shooter is undoubtedly one of the most popular games this year.
The team over at Bluehole were nice enough to give IGN an exclusive peek at some of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds internal statistics, ranging from most popular weapon types, number of kills broken down by firearm, longest kill, and more. You can watch a video breakdown of the numbers in the video above or check out the gallery below for a closer look at the data.
Dota 2 is Getting Two New Heroes in “Dueling Fates” Update
Valve ended the second to last day of The International 2017 Dota 2 tournament with a bang, announcing two brand new heroes coming to the game.
The first hero is a stylish armadillo wielding a rapier reminiscent of Zorro. The preview video shows him hopping around on hills, dancing around his enemies and dispatching them with quick swipes of his blade.
These preview videos generally are representative of a heroes abilities, meaning this currently unnamed hero will likely be highly mobile, with the ability to disarm opponents and curl up into a ball, rolling around to initiate or escape.
The second unnamed hero was given much less screen time, but appears to be the rumored fourth spirit, Sylph. Our freshly introduced armadillo friend tells her the forest is safe thanks to him, to which she replies, "ohhh, safe? It's really not," before attacking him with a minion.
Dota 2’s Top Pros Bested By Open AI Developed 1v1 Bot
Artificial intelligence company Open AI has created a bot that is taking down top Dota 2 players at The International 2017.
This year's big Dota 2 tournament is currently in its second to last day with only four teams remaining in competition. Between the event's official games, Valve always includes some fun show matches, and this year it brought in Open AI's aforementioned Dota 2 bot to face off against the game's most famous player, Danil "Dendi" Ishutin, live on the main stage.
Open AI said the 1v1 bot has learned from playing against itself in lifetimes worth of matches. In a promo video shown before the match we see the bot besting some of the game's top players, including Evil Genius' cores Arteezy and Sumail.