Category: Gaming Culture

Everything We Know About Demon Hunters

Demon Hunter is the newest class being added to World of Warcraft for the Legion expansion. They are a hero class, which means they have their own introduction/tutorial and start at a higher level. You start off at level 98 and reach level 100 after the intro, but you are required to have a level 70 character on that server before you can make a Demon Hunter.

When you make a Demon Hunter, you must wait 1 week before you can do Legacy raids. This is to prevent people from farming them by just creating a Demon Hunter, deleting it, then creating it again.

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What to do During Pre-Patch to Prepare for Legion

The Legion expansion is out at the end of the month and you might be wondering what to do in the meantime. Luckily, this is the perfect time to catch up on things you probably neglected during the peak times of World of Warcraft. Plus, there are plenty of class changes already out and new things coming on August 9th.

Also, if you’re new, or just wanting to get into WoW, this is a good time to play. I think of this as the new era because so much is changing and has changed for the Legion expansion. Although we don’t yet know what the future of WoW holds, now is a time of change.

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Color and font customization are live!

We’ve got some big news for you: Color and font customization are now live on Gamer Launch!

Complete color control!

The moment you’ve been waiting for is here! The new color scheme editor allows you to choose custom colors for all sections of your Gamer Launch site. With this new editor, you can either use pre-generated color schemes, or you can go fully customized and choose different colors for every last section.

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Can a video game developers over or under-communicate with their fans?

In today’s world, “communication” is a big deal if you want your business to thrive. The internet and social media have made it possible for consumers to communicate directly with businesses of all kind, and as a result, they expect those companies to respond. This is particularly true of game development companies. Things like YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and even Snapchat have made it possible for game devs to hold an almost constant conversation with gamers — a strategy that has worked out well for most smaller or indie developers who need their fans to help them get noticed.

It’s also worked out really well for non-gaming-centric businesses. One of the most well known entrepreneurs of our time Gary Vaynerchuck (popularly known as GaryVee) the CEO of Wine Library and Vaynermedia is a huge advocate of keeping the lines of communication open with… well… everyone, as a business practice — even encouraging business owners to make use of apps like Snapchat and more recently Music.ly. Of course, this advocation does come with caveats, most specifically, the need to use these platforms in the “right” way.

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Blizzard’s Tracer butt drama, community, and censorship

Earlier this week, Blizzard Entertainment made a lot of news for what might typically seem like a normal thing in video game development — if it weren’t for the circumstances surrounding it. The company’s Overwatch team announced the removal of one of several victory poses available for the one of the game’s most well known characters.

Tracer butt pose

Normally, this kind of removal wouldn’t be a big deal. Developers do it all the time. They decide they don’t like something for one reason or another, they come up with something that they just like better. The item in question is removed or swapped out. However, this removal ended up catching a lot of attention, not because of the removal itself, but because it was announced in response to a thread calling the art into question. The game’s director Jeff Kaplan, revealed that the pose would be replaced, noting that it is not Blizzard’s intention to make people feel uncomfortable.

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Is multiplayer destroying single player games?

Over the past decade or so multiplayer has become a rather ubiquitous feature in video games so that when it doesn’t show up in some form it’s almost shocking. Even most games designed for a single player format have at least some sort of co-op mode, allowing players to either take on special missions designed for more than one player, or to play the already existing single player component with a buddy.

For some fans of single player oriented games, this may sometimes seem like a bane. Many have accused game developers of favoring the additional multiplayer mode and losing focus on the single player aspect of the game. But is it really as big of an issue as some fans are making it out to be?

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2 lessons the eSports industry can learn from Valve’s Shanghai flop

A few weeks ago, Valve completely bombed their Dota 2 Shanghai Majors. You’ve probably heard about all of it by now — but in case you haven’t, here’s a quick rundown:

  • Fired a beloved community caster in the middle of the event
  • Let their CEO openly call aforementioned caster an “ass” on Reddit
  • Multiple sound failures in-game and during player interviews
  • Repeated game delays, some as long as an hour and a half
  • Game freezes and a plethora of other technical issues
  • Poor camera work
  • Covering team fights and critical moments via replays

The list could go on.

But the question is….what exactly went wrong? How does a multi-million dollar tournament get screwed up that badly? And how can Valve (and other companies) avoid this kind of spectacle in the future?

(Source)

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SMITE Rostermania is Shaking Up Season 3

Now that the SMITE World Championships are over and teams are looking ahead to Season 3 of the pro circuit, a lot of changes have been happening to the team rosters. Some teams have disbanded entirely, players have shuffled around, and new teams have been formed. The changes have been so frequent — and in some cases, so drastic — that the SMITE community has lovingly dubbed it “rostermania”. Some are even calling it “roster-pocalypse”.

Regardless of what they’re called, these roster switch-ups have fans hyped to see how these new teams perform in Season 3. Here’s what we know about the roster changes so far.

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Watch the World of Warcraft: Legion Dungeon Race on Twitch

World of Warcraft Legion Dungeon Race

The World of Warcraft team is hosting a special event Tuesday, February 9, at 3:00 p.m. PST (6:00 p.m EST, 11:00 p.m. GMT). The event — which will be streamed live on the Warcraft Twitch channel — is a dungeon race of epic proportions. Warcraft streamers, YouTubers, and other personalities from Europe and North America will race against each other in timed races through two of the max-level dungeons set to be released with Legion.

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What does the gaming industry mean for Atlanta’s economy?

For gamers, the fact that the video game industry is growing isn’t much of a surprise. However, it might surprise them to know that one of places where it’s growing most is Atlanta, GA. Over the last few decades gamers have associated game development in North America with the West Coast and the North West — particularly places like California and Seattle. If any place in the South was known for gaming it was Austin, Texas where companies like Bioware and Trion keep additional studios.

Atlanta, on the other hand, wasn’t widely known for its contributions to the video game industry until CCP — creators of EVE Online — bought White Wolf, the company responsible for the tabletop/LARP RPG series World of Darkness. CCP purchased the company, and announced the World of Darkness MMO in 2006. Because White Wolf was based out of Atlanta, CCP decided to set up a studio in one of the city’s suburbs, becoming the largest game development company in the area at the time.

At the same time, another game company had set up shop just north of Atlanta in 2005, and begun working on their first online game, Global Agenda, which launched in 2010. That company, now widely known for its MOBA, SMITE — and its growing eSports program — is Hi-Rez.

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