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)
***Fans who would love to watch our recorded Blizzard panels, BlizzCon panel transcripts, and appreciate our efforts can support Blizzplanet's patreon in a monthly-basis, or a one-time basis. Our staff are volunteer fans like you. Your donatives will help us travel to all the Blizzard events we attend year-round.
France-born artist and sculptor, Fred Wajeman, reached me out by email to inform that there is now a gallery website dedicated to showcase all the life-size Blizzard Entertainment-commissioned statues developed by the FX Deco workshop (to date) since 2014. Same ones you have seen at BlizzCon and GamesCom.
Among the human-sided statues featured in the website are King Varian Wrynn, Junkrat, Tracer, Winston, Widowmaker, and Warchief Garrosh Hellscream.
The Bios section shares Fred Wajeman’s former education and experience, plus links to each statue’s The-Making-Of videos.
If you wish to commission life-size statues, the FX Deco website has a contact form, or you can visit their Facebook, Linkedin, and Youtube pages.
The newest support hero, Baptiste, is now on the PTR. Baptiste is very fun to play, and if friendly players are in trouble, and there is line of sight, you can quickly jump to high ground, or above buildings in Temple of Anubis to shoot a few healing lobes.
Recently, I was contacted by Insight Editions to inform that the Overwatch: The Official Cookbook by Chelsea Monroe-Cassel is now available for pre-order. The book is slated to ship on October 1, 2019.
The book is still undergoing internal editing, but Insight Editions was able to provide a few samples. These are not final. The official cover will be revealed at a later time.
I’ll have the opportunity to interview the author at some point, so feel free to leave questions in the comments below or direct message me @blizzplanetcom via Twitter to submit your question.
Blizzard Entertainment has announced the Overwatch: Ana’s Bastet Challenge running through January 8-21 to unlock the new Bastet skin, and other in-game rewards.
Lead writer Michael Chu wrote the newest short story Overwatch: Bastet. The story picks up where the “Old Soldiers” digital comics ended. In the previous story, Reaper wounded Soldier: 76, but couldn’t finish him. Ana wrestled Reaper onto the ground, and he retreated turning into shadowy-mists.
Happy New Year! Within 2 hours after the end of Season 13, Blizzard Entertainment launched Season 14. You can now queue in Competitive Mode to start your 10 Placement Matches to work your way up the ranks.
The Game Awards 2018 declared Overwatch as winner of the Best eSports Game award: “For the game that has delivered the best overall eSports experience to players (inclusive of tournaments, community support and content updates), irrespective of genre or platform.”
Overwatch was alongside: CSGO, DOTA 2, Fortnite, and League of Legends. Fornite was the biggest winner tonight sweeping several awards, but Overwatch dominated as the Best eSport game. The award was announced at 52:06 in the video.
Congrats to the Overwatch team.
Some time ago, Overwatch was chosen Best Game of the Year; and as in tradition, Jeff Kaplan stepped in onstage to give the Best Game of the Year Award to the developers of God of War (at 03:38:28).
In the Overwatch PTR 1.30, the Rout 66 map has a peculiar change that resembles the change made to Numbani a few months before Orisa and Doomfist were announced.
In Numbani, the Payload used to have the Doomfist gauntlet encased in a crystal tube. Later, the payload had a broken crystal with no gauntlet.
In Route 66, the payload used to have a strange egg-shaped capsule since the map was launched up until Patch 1.29.
In PTR 1.30, that capsule is missing its front, and the capsule is wide open. Whatever was inside has been stolen.
SPECULATION
Numbani has two heroes: Orisa and Doomfist. Thus, it’s logical to consider that besides McCree, there will be a new hero hailing from Route 66 as well. The fact that this payload item has been stolen, might indicate that a new Hero will be announced at BlizzCon. That, and the fact the PTR patch went up recently and so close to BlizzCon.
MCCREE
In order to understand what is going on, let’s take a look back at the Overwatch Visual Source Book:
“McCree has already made a name for himself as a member of the notorious Deadlock Gang, which trafficked in illicit weapons and military hardware throughout the American Southwest, when he and his associates were busted in an Overwatch sting operation. With his expert marksmanship and resourcefulness, he was given the choice between rotting in a maximum-security lockup or joining Blackwatch, Overwatch’s covert ops division. He chose the latter.”
McCree is from Santa Fe, New Mexico (according to the book). The new hero might be local as well. Possibly, a member of the Deadlock Gang. McCree had the opportunity to evade being in prison possibly for life by serving Blackwatch, but other members of the Deadlock Gang might not have been as lucky. Maybe one of them has a bone to pick with the traitor, with some extra push from Reaper.
As for the Payload item, if you take a close look at the blueprints on the table, at the Panorama Diner, you will notice that the Payload is a military-grade prototype.
There are blueprints of the train rail as well, which suggests that the Deadlock Gang studied the vulnerabilities of the bridge, and detonated a bomb that destroyed the bridge, and caused the military train to derail and crash near the Panorama Diner.
We can’t discard the possibility that the new Hero isn’t a human, but an Omnic or other type of artificial intelligence.
Hope you enjoyed this article. Please, support Blizzplanet on Patreon, and follow us in Twitter, Facebook and YouTube for daily Blizzard games news updates.
Blizzard Entertainment’s Overwatch team added a Mike Morhaime homage to the Blizzard World map in the PTR 1.30.0. The Heroes of the Storm building now has a room with a portrait of Mike Morhaime (artwork style), the walls have a chart of all the 20 years of service and each year shows icons of the games that Mike Morhaime worked on.
Blizzard Entertainment deployed Overwatch Patch 1.29.1 introducing the new Halloween Season, Torbjorn & Pharah rework, some balance changes and bug fixes.
Blizzard Entertainment deployed the Overwatch PTR 1.29 to introduce testing of Torbjorn’s ability rework. This patch also includes a few balance adjustments to McCree, Pharah, Brigitte, Mei, Orisa, and Soldier: 76; as well as some bug fixes.
The most drastic change is that Torb will no longer craft Shield Packs and collecting Scrap is gone too. His Molten Core now creates pools of molten slag that damages enemies. Deals additional damage to armor.
Instead of crafting Shield Packs for teammates, this ability has been replaced with Overload — which makes Torbjorn to gain additional armor, improved attack, movement and reload speed. My video below shows these changes in a solo map.
GAMEPLAY
Overwatch PTR Patch Notes – September 21, 2018
A new Overwatch patch is currently in development and now available for testing. To share your feedback or report and issue, please post in the PTR Feedback or PTR Bug Report forums.
Please note that the below patch notes only include changes currently available for testing on the PTR. While many of these changes will also be available on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in a future patch, the PTR is PC-only and therefore will only reflect changes coming specifically to that platform.
PATCH HIGHLIGHTS
Colorblind Options Updates
Customize how team colors are displayed in your UI (e.g. nameplates, HUD, health bars) and hero outlines with a set of nine different colorblind-friendly colors to choose from. You choose to colorize enemy and friendly UI separately as well. These options can be found under Options > Video > Color Blind Options. All changes made will be saved and ready for you to see in the next match you play!
HERO UPDATES
General
Updated visuals for all shields and barriers to increase readability
Brigitte
Barrier Shield
Shield health reduced from 600 to 500
Developer Comments: The health of Brigitte’s barrier was extremely difficult for most heroes to deal with even as she was able to close the distance with her targets. This change still provides Brigitte with substantial survivability but should also be more rewarding for opponents who pressure her.
McCree
Combat Roll
Cooldown reduced from 8 to 6 seconds
Developer Comments: Previously, the cooldown of McCree’s Combat Roll felt too restrictive, which sometimes prohibited players from using it. The new, faster cooldown should allow for more flexibility when choosing between using it for mobility or an instant reload.
Pharah
Concussive Blast
Cooldown reduced from 12 to 9 seconds
Rocket Launcher
Attack speed increased
Lowered recovery between shots from 0.9 to 0.75
Damage redistributed between explosion and impact
Explosion damage reduced from 80 to 65
Impact damage increased from 40 to 55
Explosion knockback reduced by 20%
Self-knockback range increased by 25%
Developer Comments: We wanted to increase how responsive Pharah’s Rocket Launcher felt. Having almost a full second of recovery between shots made it feel sluggish. To balance out the improved recovery time, we shifted some of the damage from the rocket’s explosion to the direct impact damage. The overall damage potential is now increased when landing direct hits and decreased slightly when only dealing explosive damage. We reduced the amount of knockback each explosion causes, as they made it very difficult to aim at Pharah while rockets came in at a faster pace. The Concussive Blast cooldown reduction should allow the ability to sync up more closely with the Jump Jet cooldown when used for mobility.
Mei
General
Updated visual effects for all abilities
Orisa
Fusion Driver
Maximum spread reduced from 1.5 to 1.2
Developer Comments: Orisa spends a significant amount of time firing her Fusion Driver from a relatively stationary location and the weapon’s spread value caused it to feel too random when leading targets at a distance, taking into account the projectiles’ travel time. We’ve tightened the spread slightly, which should leave her close- and mid-range damage potential largely unchanged, while making it feel better to try to hit targets at longer ranges.
Soldier: 76
Heavy Pulse Rifle
Number of shots until max spread increased from 6 to 9
Developer Comments: Soldier: 76’s damage output was a bit low but not too far off from where we feel it should be. Making it take a few more shots to reach max spread smooths out the weapon spread curve and should help his damage be more consistent.
Torbjörn
General
Reduced the size of Torbjörn’s head hit volume by 10%
Rivet Gun
Primary Fire
Projectile speed increased from 60 to 70 per second
Reload time reduced from 2.2 to 2 seconds
Turret targets enemy hit by primary fire
Alternate Fire
Recovery lowered from 0.8 to 0.6 seconds
Damage per shot lowered from 150 to 125
Reload time reduced from 2.2 to 2 seconds
Spread randomization readjusted
Forge Hammer
Radius increased to align with Quick Melee
Deploy Turret
Now a thrown projectile
Automatically builds over three seconds
No longer has different levels
Same damage output as previous level 2 turret
Maximum health reduced from 300 to 250
Now incurs a 5 second cooldown when deployed
Now incurs a 10 second cooldown when destroyed in combat
No longer able to deploy a new turret if it’s in combat
While the turret is firing
If the turret has taken damage within three seconds
Now able to destroy turret using the Interact input
Now will complete self-building once deployed, even if Torbjörn is eliminated
New Ability: Overload
Replaces Armor Pack
Lasts for 5 seconds (12 second cooldown)
Temporarily grants 150 armor
Increases attack, movement, and reload speed by 30%
New Ultimate: Molten Core
Switches weapon from Rivet Gun to his claw arm
Lasts 6 seconds
Fire up to 10 molten globules that create damage pools where they land for 10 seconds
Bounces off walls and ceilings until coming into contact with the ground
Base damage is 130
Damage increases from 130 to 190 against enemies who have armor
Heroes who can grant armor to their allies: Brigitte
Developer Comments: Torbjörn was initially designed to be a specialized hero, intended to be a strong defensive option due to his armor-generating capabilities and ability to control areas with his turret. However, the scrap collecting and Armor Pack mechanics have proven to cause problematic gameplay issues through their feast or famine nature. In order to make the hero more flexible in a wide variety of situations, we’ve removed the scrap system, made the turret much easier to deploy, replaced the Armor Pack ability with Overload—a powerful self-buff—and transformed Molten Core into a powerful new area denial ultimate ability.
Reduced the setup timer for Assault, Escort, and Assault/Escort maps from 1 minute to 45 seconds
BUG FIXES
Heroes
Bastion
Fixed a bug that caused the roll bar on Bastion’s Dune Buggy skin to obscure its view when backing up or firing in Tank configuration
D.Va
Fixed a bug that prevented some glow visual effects from appearing on D.Va’s Nano Cola skin
Fixed a bug that prevented D.Va from fully appearing when viewing her MEKA Activated highlight intro in the Hero Gallery
Hanzo
Fixed a bug that caused Hanzo’s Storm Bow reticle to be visible while emoting
Mei
Fixed a bug that prevented Mei’s Blizzard from freezing enemies when cast in areas with low ceilings
Reinhardt
Fixed a bug that caused the player’s reticle to pitch up after using Earthshatter
Fixed a bug that caused Reinhardt’s Earthshatter animations to play if used while he was juggled in the air by knockback abilities
Sombra
Fixed an issue that caused Sombra to change the direction she was facing when using her Translocator to teleport
Symmetra
Fixed a bug that caused Symmetra to have a chance of playing inaccurate voice lines when placing turrets
Torbjörn
Fixed a bug that prevented Torbjörn’s medal from appearing in his Medal victory pose
Zarya
Fixed a bug that caused Zarya’s Particle Cannon reticle to be visible while emoting
Maps
Busan
Fixed a bug that allowed players to stand on some prohibited rooftops in Downtown
Fixed a bug that prevented sprays from displaying on glass windows in MEKA Base
Volskaya Industries
Fixed a bug that prevented players from receiving capture credit if they dropped onto the point from one of the moving platforms
Game Browser and Custom Games
Deathmatch
Fixed a bug that prevented the “your team has lost” or “your team has taken the lead” voice lines from playing when the score swap happens due to self-inflicted deaths
VS AI
Fixed a bug that prevented players from receiving an “unable to join” error message if they attempted to spectate a Player vs AI match when all spectator slots were full
Hope you enjoyed this article. Please, support Blizzplanet on Patreon, and follow us in Twitter, Facebook and YouTube for daily Blizzard games news updates.
