Category: Game

As Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft approaches its two-year anniversary, Blizzard is preparing to implement the biggest changes the popular digital card game has seen thus far. In a conversation with Polygon last week, Blizzard revealed plans to add formats to Hearthstone beginning with the launch of the game’s first expansion of 2016 later this year.
The idea of formats will be familiar to people who have played traditional card games like Magic: The Gathering; essentially, they’re rules that determine which cards from the complete set can be used in any given game. In the case of Hearthstone, there will be two formats introduced in 2016: wild and standard.
Wild format is the traditional mode that players have used up to now, where every card from all expansions and adventures is allowed. The new standard format will only allow cards from the Basic and Classic sets and any expansions or adventures from the the last two calendar years. Both wild and standard will have separate ranked and casual play modes.
“The volume of feedback that we’ve been hearing is, ‘Hey, it’s getting more and more difficult to get my friends to play Hearthstone,’" lead designer Ben Brode told Polygon in an interview last week. "We really want each new thing that we release to really shake up the meta-game. It’s one of those things that very slowly, over time, it gets harder and harder to do that."
When standard format is introduced this year, cards from the Curse of Naxxramas and Goblins vs. Gnomes sets will not be allowed in that format. Blackrock Mountain, The Grand Tournament, and League of Explorers cards will be allowed, along with Basic and Classic cards and cards from the as-yet-unnamed new expansion. Blizzard is calling 2016 "The Year of the Kraken" as "a thematic way to refer to the first year of standard format year." As card sets are rotated out of standard with each year’s first expansion, Blizzard will give each year a new name.

Once a set has been rotated out of standard, it will no longer be purchasable with either real money or in-game gold. Instead, Blizzard says players will be able to craft any non-standard cards they want to use in wild format using the game’s arcane dust crafting system. This includes cards from adventures, which were previously uncraftable.
Adventures themselves will also no longer be purchasable. If you want to experience the single-player content adventures offer, you’ll need to buy them before they’re rotated out of standard mode. Brode said Blizzard may consider making non-standard adventures purchasable again in the future, but the developer wants to avoid confusing new players with options that aren’t as useful to them.
Arena, the Hearthstone mode that allows players to put together a deck from random card choices, will remain in wild format, as will most of the weekly Tavern Brawl updates. However, standard format will be the main focus for Hearthstone tournaments and esports, as well as where Blizzard will push new players for an experience that requires less catching up when you initially start the game.
"Most of Hearthstone isn’t changing," Brode said. "You can still play Tavern Brawls with all your cards and solo adventures and challenge your friends and play in wild mode. We’re basically just adding a new way to play if you want a meta-game that changes more frequently or don’t have all the cards and want to get into a mode where you don’t feel like you have to go get every card ever made. That’s really what standard is for."
In addition to the fresh formats, Blizzard is taking this opportunity to introduce further changes to Hearthstone. Most notably, players will finally get a long-requested boost to the number of deck slots available. Players will now be able to create and save 18 total deck slots, up from the current nine allowed.

The Hearthstone team will also use the deck rotation each year as an opportunity to review and tweak cards from the Basic and Classic sets, which will remain part of standard format forever.
"We have a list of cards that we’re looking at," Brode said. "This will be the biggest balance change that we’ve ever made to Hearthstone. It’s not going to be a massive percentage of the set or anything like that. We have to hit a lot of cards, though. It’s definitely going to be significantly less than 20 cards. It’s not going to be even close to that number. It’ll be more than two. We’re still trying to get that final list and still tweaking things."
Brode pointed to classes like the druid as a key example of what the team hopes to change.
"Some classes have too many cards that are just too high power level," he said. "It makes it very hard to make new cards for classes like druid, because they have so many really good cards in Basic and Classic. We have to do some nerfs to make sure we can still see a different druid deck as a new set comes out."
Standard and wild formats will be introduced to Hearthstone when the first set of new cards for 2016 launches. Blizzard isn’t yet ready to talk about when or what that will be, but Brode mentioned that the company is targeting a spring release. An FAQ for the changes said the expansion will be "really really cool."
For more on Hearthstone, check out our YouTube playlist of goofy videos on the game.

The Vive wants you to walk in VR, and devs say the cable won’t hold you back There is a cable that connects the Vive virtual reality headset to the computer. When you’re walking around your room-scale VR experience, or even just standing in front of your system, you can feel it. It’s always there, and during my time with the Vive’s games at the recent developer showcase I often felt that I was going to trip over it, or perhaps pull a computer off the shelf.
But the developers working with the technology say I’ll get over it.
“The things people expect to have problems with aren’t problems for those who have been spending significant time with the hardware," Alex Schwartz, CEO of Owlchemy Labs, the developer behind Job Simulator told us. "Some devs have thousands of hours in VR. It’s not something that’s actually posed a problem after giving hundreds of demos."
"This isn’t just marketing, but I honestly find that there’s kind of a sixth sense you develop over time, to the point where anybody who is using the Vive regularly doesn’t even think about it," Joel Green, producer and audio director of the upcoming VR game The Gallery told Polygon. "Developers don’t really talk about the cable being an issue anymore, that I’ve heard. Because of the way it falls down the headset and you feel it on your body occasionally, you just kind of learn where it is and now it’s not an issue. I don’t think it takes too long for that to happen."
That thought was repeated multiple times when I asked about the cable.
"The cable itself becomes a little more natural once you’re in the game, you find yourself kind of flipping it with your leg and with your foot," Alex Knoll, the lead designer on Hover Junkers said. "To us the cable just becomes natural, like a natural extension of yourself. We don’t really find big problems with it."
It just takes a bit of time.
"We found that players who have spent some time in the Vive or people who have spent about 20-40 minutes playing in game are able to subconsciously manage the cable without any problem, either by moving in ways that wont tangle it or by kicking it out of the way without thinking about it," Knoll continued. "Many of the experiences have players turn around frequently and all developers have reported the same findings: the cable is just something you deal with, its never a real hindrance."
So don’t worry! According to the developers spending the most time in VR, you get used to it. And apparently it’s a fast process. "At the content showcase we demo’d for the three days to over 50 people and even to some people who have never set foot in VR before," Knoll said. "We didn’t jockey the cable for anyone and there were no problems."

Don’t try to fight the feeling Rock Band 4’s music library is growing with a couple of huge hits today in Outkast’s “Hey Ya!" and Daft Punk’s "Get Lucky," developer Harmonix announced yesterday.
The danceable guitar-based tracks are both being released today, along with Kelly Clarkson’s "Heartbeat Song," for $1.99 each on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
In addition to this week’s DLC, Harmonix released a list of artists whose music will be coming to the Rock Band Music Store over the course of February. Rock Band 4 players can expect songs from Bruno Mars, Five Finger Death Punch, Generation X, J. Geils Band, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Masaya Matsuura, Motörhead, Orleans, Royal Blood, and Zac Brown Band.
Matsuura, the musician and game designer behind Vib-Ribbon and the Parappa the Rapper games, contributed music to Beat Sports, the Apple TV launch title from Harmonix.
Harmonix also confirmed that Rock Band 4’s February update — which was scheduled to be its January update until a last-minute delay — will be available today. The patch wipes the game’s online leaderboards because it includes fixes for score exploits, and it also brings in some new items, like Psychonauts-inspired clothing for the character creator.
For more on Rock Band 4, read our review.

The Figgis Detective Agency is open for business The creative team behind FX’s popular Archer are shipping the playboy spy and his group of misfit colleagues to the West Coast.
Speaking with Uproxx, producers Casey Willis and Matt Thompson said they wanted to incorporate Archer’s obsession with Magnum P.I. into the show, and thought having him essentially become his hero by becoming a private investigator would be a fun way to go about it.
In fact, the first trailer for the upcoming season was a shot-for-shot remake of Magnum P.I.’s opening, giving fans a look into what they could expect out of the new season. A comparison can be seen in the video below.

According to Thompson, there are going to be some big changes on the show that don’t just include the team’s uproot to Los Angeles. One of the biggest, however, will be that lowly accountant turned sometimes secret agent Cyril Figgis will now be Archer’s boss.
In order to own and operate a licensed private detective agency, the person applying for the certification must have either 2,000 hours of private detective work in the bank or a law degree, according to federal law. Since Cyril is the only one with a law degree, he’s in charge of running the business, appropriately named Figgis Detective Agency.
Thompson said that having Cyril as his boss is something that Archer can’t really come to terms with and will be a main source of contempt for the former spy and hilarity for the audience.
The producers also confirmed that the show would continue its tradition of bringing big name stars into various episodes, with J.K. Simmons (Whiplash) and Keegan-Michael Key (Key and Peele) joining the cast near the beginning of the season.
Patton Oswalt, Jon Daly and Jon Glasser are also confirmed for the new season, while Thompson said they’re working on bringing Tom Selleck — another hero of Archer’s — into the show, but there’s nothing concrete just yet.
The seventh season of Archer premieres on March 31 on FX.

Bizarro makes a complete mess of Kara’s romantic moment Last week, Supergirl was grappling with a galactic genocidal gangster, so it was must have been something of a relief for her to get back to the relative familiarity of her tangled love-life, in this touchy-feely episode that was all about relationships.
She (or at least, her alter-ego Kara Danvers) finally got it on with model sappy boyfriend material Adam, which was nice, up until the moment when an undead version of herself swooped in and flew her away.
This Other-Supergirl (nicknamed Bizarro by media queen Cat Grant) is an abominable creation of vile tech entrepreneur Maxwell Lord. As in the original Superman DC comic-books, Bizarro is an evil copy of heroic protagonists, in this case, Bizarro Supergirl. Lord plays the Doctor Frankenstein role, breathing new life into a dead young woman, so she can wreak havoc on the world.
In one teeth-grinding moment, he has her call him “My Lord." The way he strokes her hair and touches her skin is almost as unpleasant as his exhortation that she destroy Supergirl.

This leads to the usual to-ing and fro-ing in abandoned buildings and dusty out-of-town locations. The two antagonists get down to some Rock-Paper-Supergirl. Lazer Eyes counters Lazer Eyes. Fiery Breath countered by Freezy Breath. Punchy Flying Attack blocked by Stone Fist.
Alex Danvers puts an end to all this nonsense, turning up with an anti-Bizarro weapon. Big Sister With Fancy Kryptonite Gun Wins. Poor Bizarro loses her looks and is rendered into a zombie, which actually matches perfectly with her stilted conversational techniques. "Must. Kill. Supergirl."
"Once again, a super-powered monster is on the loose in National City," sighs Hank Henshaw. But it turns out that if you reverse the ionic charge of Kryptonite and apply that to a weapons-grade discharge … something, something … resolution of final action sequence.
Just prior to Bizarro’s undoing, she has a quiet chat with James Olsen, who tries to make her feel better about the fact that she looks like someone who has been dead for a few weeks. "We all feel like we’re ugly sometimes," says this fantastically good-looking man who is dating one beautiful woman and in a pleasingly flirtatious relationship with another. "We all feel like no-one loves us," says the geezer who is best mates with a bloke who can fly.

Anyway, let’s get back to Adam. Supergirl and he went out on a date. They shared secrets. They smooched.
I mean, obviously, he’s not really right for her. He seems to me to be a prize berk. He’s the sort of cleft-chinned fellow who coos, "You’re amazing," on a first date. In my book, this alone makes him as much a monster as any freaky insect alien. But there’s no accounting for taste and no comprehending the mysteries of sexual attraction between good-looking people.
Suffice it to say, Supergirl likes him. So it’s painful for her to throw him over the side. Despite their romantic connection, she comes to understand that being a superhero AND fetching coffees for Cat Grant AND attending to her own human, emotional needs is just too much, so something has to give.

Adam is devastated. He exits the show, hopefully for a very long time, so we can get back to the far more interesting romantic ties with sad-sack Winn and spoken-for James. Also, Cat is mad at Kara because Adam is her son. This is bad for Kara but good for the rest of us.  If Cat starts being nice to Kara, this show is pretty much dead.
Now for the best bit. Alex has finally had enough of Maxwell Lord and his slimy shenanigans, so she pays him a little visit. "Maxwell Lord, You’re under arrest," she declares, whipping out her evil-proof handcuffs. Glory-be.
Lord is a wonderfully hateful villain, a zero-empathy, smug tycoon with a God Complex. Oh man, we all love to see dudes like that get their comeuppance.
You can read all Polygon’s Supergirl recaps here.

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The Division’s closed beta wraps up today, and despite the super limited amount of content available in this pre-release sliver of Ubisoft’s open-world third-person shooter, I’m gonna miss it. The beta showcased some slick progression hooks, let players take a run at an instanced co-op mission and, best of all, let anarchy run wild in the Dark Zone. That’s The Division’s player vs. player area, where you’re encouraged to trust nobody — unless, of course, in that cruel arena, an unlikely friendship is forged.
You can hear some thoughts from Arthur and me and watch a bunch of gameplay video from The Division’s beta above. The Division launches March 8 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows PC.

Thanks, EA Electronic Arts is giving away 2012’s Need for Speed Most Wanted on its Origin service starting today. The Windows PC version of the game is the latest addition to EA’s On the House offerings, joining the group of free, downloadable games.
An Origin membership is required to download the game; registration for an account is free, and all On the House titles are yours to keep forever.
The previous On the House game was Jade Empire, the role-playing game from BioWare. Other past titles have included Dead Space and Plants vs. Zombies.
Most Wanted first saw release in 2005 as the racing game series’ ninth installment. That version was developed by EA Black Box, but it was Burnout series developer Criterion Games that took charge of 2012’s reboot. Criterion’s version of Most Wanted drew inspiration from its forebears as well as the Burnout series, and combined open-world gameplay with a multiplayer focus.
We liked the game when we took it for a spin on the Xbox 360 upon release. It was later followed by 2015’s Need for Speed, another rebooted game in EA’s racing franchise.

Panthers get out to a three-score lead, then have to come back against Broncos The Carolina Panthers will defeat the Denver Broncos 24-20 in Super Bowl 50, Madden NFL 16 predicts.
Characteristic of earlier games against Seattle and New York this year, Carolina will take a 17-0 lead into the half before Denver rips off 20 unanswered points to seize a fourth-quarter lead. Madden 16 says the game will come down to the final play, a run by Panthers quarterback Cam Newton.
If that sounds a little too convenient, remember that last year Madden NFL 15 picked the exact score of Super Bowl XLIX (Patriots 28, Seahawks 24) and the deciding touchdown (Julian Edelman, catching a pass from Tom Brady). Madden NFL 15 also came within a whisker of predicting the passing and receiving yardage totals for both players, too.
Newton, the favorite to be named league MVP on Saturday, will be the Super Bowl 50 MVP according to Madden NFL 16, passing for 216 yards and one touchdown. Peyton Manning, in what may be his swan song, will throw for 241 yards and two touchdowns, says the video game.
Last year, Madden predicted the exact score of the Super Bowl
Since its introduction in 2004 with Super Bowl XXVIII, EA Sports’ simulation has correctly picked the Super Bowl winner in 9 out of 12 contests. Moreover, it’s been solid against both the point spread and over/under lines Vegas bookmakers have set for the game. Madden is 8-4 against the spread, and has won against the over/under the past four years straight.
After opening as 3.5-point favorites, Carolina is now giving up anywhere from 5.5 to six points at the major sports books. The over/under is 45 or 45.5 points. So for those interested in such things, take the under and the Broncos to cover.
This simulation is admittedly unscientific, the computer controlling both teams in a game run just once on Pro difficulty. But EA Sports is justifiably proud of how well its marquee game has done predicting the Super Bowl. (And it is literally impossible to outdo last year’s call.) Other than last year’s perfecto, Madden also came up big calling victories in 2013 for Baltimore, then a 4.5-point underdog to San Francisco, and in 2010 for New Orleans, a 5-point dog to Indianapolis.
Other games have taken a shot at calling Sunday’s championship. A mod of Tecmo Super Bowl, done by TecmoBowl.org, also called a Panthers’ victory, 17 to 7.
Last week, Madden NFL 16 was added to the EA Access “vault" of free games available to Xbox One subscribers.

Slot it into your calendar Bethesda Softworks will return to Los Angeles in 2016 for its second pre-E3 press briefing, the publisher announced today on Twitter.
Bethesda’s E3 2016 press conference is scheduled to start Sunday, June 12, at 7 p.m. PT. The company did not specify a venue.
Last year, Bethesda held a pre-E3 showcase for the first time, also on the Sunday of E3 week. During the show, the publisher announced the long-rumored Fallout 4, unveiled and released the mobile game Fallout Shelter, went into a deep dive on Doom, announced Dishonored 2, and more.
This year’s event could focus on Doom and Dishonored 2 — neither of which has a confirmed release date beyond 2016 at this point — as well as downloadable content for Fallout 4, which Bethesda has announced is on the way but hasn’t detailed. The company is also working on the free-to-play game BattleCry.
Bethesda’s show will begin six hours after Electronic Arts’ keynote, which usually takes place Monday afternoon but will kick off at 1 p.m. PT on Sunday this year.

Out of the trash compactor, into the fire. Captain Phasma did not meet an untimely demise in a garbage chute, actress Gwendoline Christie confirmed on the 2016 SAG Awards red carpet.
“I will be in the next Star Wars movie. I think that’s an exclusive, actually," the actress told People Magazine.
Captain Phasma’s chromed stormtrooper armor and inimitable style (the cape! the walk!) grabbed fans’ attention very early on in the media blitz surrounding the new Star Wars trilogy. But in the end, her appearances in Star Wars: The Force Awakens were far smaller than many had hoped. Her lines were few and far between, she never even appeared without her mask and in the end Han Solo, Chewbacca and Finn literally threw her in the trash.
Of course, there are three movies in a trilogy, and just because a character doesn’t feature heavily in the first doesn’t mean we won’t see more of them later — provided, of course, that Phasma survived her close encounter with Starkiller Base’s sewage system.
Fortunately, it appears that she has. Christie was frank about how excited she was to be reprising the role, not least for breaking the barrier of becoming the first prominent female stormtrooper on screen.
"I also just liked this notion of a female stormtrooper," she told People. "I felt it encouraged diversity and it was doing something new and it was an interesting bit of casting for women, and I hope that in something that was such a mainstream success it would breed more of those kind of opportunities for other women."
Star Wars: Episode VIII will premiere Dec. 15, 2017.