The last two weeks have brought a lot of info and fun things to the wonderful worlds Blizzard has made for us.
We start out with Starcraft II. Patch 2.1 launched this week bringing a lot of changes and some pretty awesome features. Full patch notes can be found here, but there are some very nice changes to be aware if you aren't one of those patch note readers. First Blizzard has changed the StarCraft II arcade system to be completely free. All that is required is an account for the free Starcraft II Starter Edition.
New extension mod capabilities have been added for those developer types to add some interesting features to standard melee maps. The best way to see exactly what fun things you can do with this would be to take a look at the preview.
Any Carbot fans out there? Want to show of your StarCraft II profile with one of those awesome characters? Well get to leveling because now we have new rewards and new levels to achieve in Heart of the Swarm. Helped along by a quadrupling of the amount of XP gained with the First Win of the Day XP bonus.
My personal favorite out of the 2.1 patch is an addition of the classic Starcraft soundtrack in Starcraft II. To get that awesome music from the original, check out the sound tab in the options menu and choose between Starcraft II, Starcraft/Brood War music or both.
In the World of Warcraft we have our first look at Artcraft by Chris Robinson, senior art director for WoW. In his first article posted we have the reveal of our new human female character model. The model honestly looks great even for it being Alliance. Check out the full post here. However we did catch a small little detail which if followed through on would make a lot of people happy –
“We’re looking at these model revamps as a sort of “spiritual update” to the art content that currently exists in-game—except we’re completely redoing them from scratch. That includes the base model, skin tone variations, customization options (e.g. wrinkles, scars, moles, earrings, etc.), hairstyles, and any skin variations for NPCs you see out in the world, like Iron Dwarves or Leper”
Mag’har and Grimtotem skins anyone?
The Lunar Festival started in WoW this week on Monday and lasts until February the 3rd. Get out into the world and help honor your elders in Azeroth. Complete all the in game achievements and get rewarded with your own title of Elder.
For all the mount collectors out there the Iron Skyreaver has been released and is available in the blizzard store. Want to feel like a member of the Iron Horde already invading Azeroth? This may be right up your alley. Take a look at the preview below.
In the World of Diablo Blizzard has already enabled the background downloader for Reaper of Souls. Models and other data that is already confirmed and ready to go for the expansion will be put on the downloader which has been estimated to be about 6GB in size. Coming along with this, those that have not yet upgraded to the desktop app for Battle.net will get the update automatically when patch 2.0.1 launches at some point before March 25th. The app can be downloaded anytime if you want to try it out now. Check it out.
