Tomas Hernandez is owner of Blizzplanet.com since 2003. I post news about World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, Diablo III, Hearthstone, Overwatch, Heroes of the Storm, Blizzard Careers, and the Warcraft film.
Blizzplanet is a leading fansite covering news about upcoming Blizzard Entertainment licensed products. I also post previews and reviews. I have interviewed book writers and Blizzard game developers.
I was previously an employee of the OGaming Network (2003), and IncGamers (2008-2010). I was a guest newsposter for GosuGamers (World of Warcraft) a few years ago and for Diablofans.com (formerly Diablo3.com)
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The newest Shadowlands Alpha build 34365 added new Human customization options, and other new updates. The following video is 1:46 hours long. Feel free to use the timeline bar to move to the race you wish to check out (until I’m able to get shortcuts). Click the video title to launch YouTube. At the gear icon choose 1080HD and fullscreen.
Not all races/genders got an update, but I recorded all of them because most of the hair styles and other options now have a name, not just a number.
Check out the accordion below to see which races/genders got new customization options.
Click the accordion below to browse through all the new customizations in this specific build, and what has no change.
Days of Wonder announced the launch of the Small World of Warcraft board game, based on their Small World game mechanics.
A new day dawns on Azeroth. A day like every one before it, and every one after. A day of merciless struggle for the control of the World of Warcraft. Not only is this Small World territory far too tight for everyone, it also hosts the never-ending conflict between the factions of the Alliance and the Horde. Dawn has broken and the time has come to take your place on the front lines.
Small World of Warcraft is a stand-alone board game set in Blizzard’s glorious video game universe, Azeroth. 2-5 players vie for control of several islands in this hostile world and their only hope will be to pick the right combination of races and special powers. After staking your claim to a piece of land, defeat your neighbors and expand your territory. If you can occupy legendary places and control powerful magical artifacts, you’ll reach new levels of domination. However, empires must eventually fall, so be ready to put your over-extended race into decline and lead a new one to glory so you can eventually rule Azeroth.
UPDATE (May 19): After fan backlash on Reddit and other platforms, AMD took the decision to take back their recent announcement. You can disregard some portions of my article like the title (AMD Zen 3 Not For Your Current Mobo) and the earlier announcement. Basically, AMD is now allowing Zen 3 CPUs on X470 and B450 (AM4) motherboards via BIOS update, but once you flash it, you won’t be able to downgrade as the update will make space by deleting data to accommodate Zen 3 support data into the BIOS.
“We’ve heard our audience, and we understand the concerns. We are going to work out a way to support Zen 3 on our 400-series chipsets between now and launch – we’re still working out the what and the how, but we will update you closer to Zen 3 launch.”
In the current Shadowlands Alpha build 34324, and for at least the past 3 builds, there are 4 quests you can queue to play in Torghast, the Tower of the Damned.
It is unknown how these will be accessed in Live realms post-launch, but what I can confirm is that these quests last 6 Floors and end with a boss encounter.
Disclaimer: I do not play a Shaman in live servers. The same way you don’t know how to play all 12 classes, and/or all the 30+ different specs, I don’t. Addons are disabled in the Alpha, thus I can’t use Heiki for rotation. Please, focus on the anima powers and the content found in Torghast, and not my bad rotation.
Click the video titles to launch YouTube. There you can access 1080HD from the gear icon, and fullscreen.
The latest 34278 build was over 1GB in file size. It needs to be patched again to fix some unstable server issues:
Landing after taking a flightpath disconnects the client, or in extreme cases auto-force-quits to desktop.
Clicking on the Anima Pads at Hero’s Rest in Bastion disconnects the client.
Random disconnections while riding.
Another really bad bug is a permanet loss of your Alpha character in this build. DO NOT use the Anima Gateway (transportation pads) around Hero’s Rest when you go down. It’s better to just jump down and ghost run to the body. If you don’t, your character is permanently a few yards above the air — unable to go up or down, so whenever you go past a hill, your character is further above ground. You can no longer quest in areas that are downhill. There is no fix: I tried logout/login, hearthstone, dying.
Update: A few hours later, when I login, all character are now grounded. However, if you were pretty high in the air before logout, you will land hard.
Worgen and Undead are not yet enabled in this build as playable characters.
The Horde version of Exile’s Reach is not yet available.
Only Bastion and Revendreth are available for testing. No new zones.
Level cap has been increased in Bastion. It was previously capped to level 53. I reached 54 today while in Torghast.
CHARACTER CUSTOMIZATION
New character customization options for the Gnome female, and Night Elf female: Pixie, Flipped, and Large Bun.
Many fans have previously opt-in to beta testing all Blizzard IPs, and possibly think they are already opt-in to be invited to Shadowlands beta.
I don’t know if Blizzard Entertainment is already considering those people already to join beta, or if all that data has been deleted. What I do know is that the old beta opt-in page is gone for good. It no longer exists.
In fact, at the moment of this posting, there is no way to actually double-check whether you have opt-in or not. I am currently playing Shadowlands Alpha, and I did opt-in to the brand-new opt-in page — I just login to the Battle.net account, and it still doesn’t show me as already opt-in.
So I do honestly recommend you to follow the link and to opt-in to the Shadowlands Beta. Simply scroll down until you see the opt-in now button (as shown in the image below). It is now that you are officially opt-in, internally, in Blizzard’s beta test list.
The Activision Blizzard Q1 2020 financial results conference call took place today May 5, 2020 at 4:30pm ET / 1:30 PT.
Activision Blizzard saw continued momentum for World of Warcraft and better-than-expected results for other key franchises, as populations sheltering at home turned to their content for entertainment and social connection.
During the conference, regional testing for new mobile titles was mentioned. We know that Diablo Immortal beta will start some time mid-2020 (probably around June), but the plural mention here means there is another mobile game going into beta. The second one might be in relation to Activision or King, as Blizzard has not yet announced what the Unannounced Mobile Game is — but rumors last year pointed toward a Warcraft Pokemon Go-meets-Warcraft Pets type of game.
AMD has been dominating the market this past year, with Intel set to make a release very soon to counter AMD. So it is yet to be determined how well the new Intel CPUs will fare before AMD’s.
Until then, if you are in the process of getting a new computer for World of Warcraft: Shadowlands or any other favorite video game, the best option is to build a new computer yourself after buying the correct AMD CPU and other computer parts. Building a computer isn’t too hard once you know what CPU you wish..
It has been a while since my last article on building a computer. There are better CPUs, motherboards, and graphic cards since then. So let’s start with what you need in 2020 for a future-proof computer system built by you from scratch.
Blizzard Entertainment deployed a new patch, adding many new graphic assets to the game. Check out the patch notes.
WARCRAFT III: REFORGED PATCH NOTES
Art
All Melee units and buildings have received a team color polish pass to increase vibrancy and gameplay readability.
Female Demon Hunter scaled up to match closer with Male Demon Hunter’s silhouette.
Waterfall changed to use Replaceable Textures. Its tint automatically adjusts in game based on the map tileset.
Visual effect used for the first stage of buildings damage changed from smoke to fire for better readability.
Adjusted fire visual effects placements on the Townhall, Keep, and Castle for added readability during their damaged states.
Northrend Trees have been updated to match Classic visuals. There are now four visually distinctive tree wall sets:
Northrend Icy Tree Wall
Northrend Tree Wall
Snowy Tree Wall
Scorched Tree Wall
Footprints have been updated for the following groups:
Trolls have their own unique footprint.
Undead units with missing footprints are now fixed.
Vehicles now have continuous rolling footprint.
Fixed an issue with the Female Demon Hunter’s hero icon appearing incorrectly when disabled while in Demon form.
Tuskarr Trapper now throws his own spear when attacking.
Portrait animations have been updated for the following units: Peasant, Sorceress, High Elf, Lich, Dreadlord, Balnazzar, Mal’ganis, Keeper of the Grove, Night Elf Runner, Cenarius, Illidan (Demon Form), Tree of Life, Tree of Ages, Tree of Eternity, and their corrupted counterparts.
Reduced Violence updates:
Female Death Knight updated with correct visual effects for spell casting.
Ogre Magi no longer disappears in the middle of its attack animations.
Custom Games
Single Player mode has been re-enabled. This can be accessed from its own Create Games section in the Main Menu.
Fixed multiple crashes on custom games such as Custom Hero Survival.
Several fixes have been applied to Instance API natives related to unit attacks.
Blizzard.j and common.j are no longer considered when computing save checksums.
Editor
The “Export All” option in the Asset Manager now functions correctly.
Gameplay
Destructibles flagged as “Walkable” no longer cause desyncs between Classic and Reforged.
Reforged Troll mercenary unit selection circles are now smaller and more aligned with Classic.
All Neutral unit selection circles now properly match the Reforged unit models.
Creep camps are easier to see on the minimap.
Permanent morphing units, such as the Obsidian Statue, will no longer briefly display their disabled morph ability icon while transforming.
Graphics
Game lighting adjusted to improve Reforged readability and colors.
Sound
Doom Guards now have the correct sound effects for their air and ground attacks.
Forest, Dark, and Ice Troll Trappers will no longer play the Berserk sound effect when casting Ensnare in Reforged mode.
Alchemist facial animations and acknowledgement sounds updated.
Flesh Golem facial animations and acknowledgement sounds updated.
User Interface
Sepia tone backgrounds in Classic mode have been reverted.
The “Use Command Button for Hotkeys” on Mac now functions as expected.
