It's been a while since I last wrote about e-sports that I wanted to share my feelings on it. There have been many positive (as well as negative) developments in the e-sports world that it is interesting to talk about. I wanted to write about e-sports again because I just came back from BlizzCon, which had a fairly big focus on the competitive aspect of video games. Most of the focus was on Overwatch, which is probably going to become one of the biggest e-sport games out there. Overwatch had a "World Cup" format at BlizzCon, where players from different countries faced off against each other. Pretty soon the Overwatch League is going to happen, which consists of teams in various cities around the world facing against each other. Whether or not Overwatch League is going to be successful is yet to be determined but there is many signs that it might be successful.
First of all, each city in the Overwatch League will have an arena where the games are played. I think for the first season, most of it will be played in the Los Angeles arena but I don't know for sure. The arena aspect is pretty important to e-sports in general since many people would like to attend a live competitive video game match. I know that for the Overwatch World Cup at BlizzCon, the arena was one of the things that made e-sports so important. Attending an arena is really just like watching e-sports on a screen because at an arena, there is a huge jumbotron where all the action is televised. Watching the video game players isn't very interesting at all since all the action is based around the game. Sure there could be some focus on the players (like how are they feeling or are they having a good/bad time) but most of focus will be on the big screen. Although the players are not the focus, it is important that they are there in the arena playing and not just playing somewhere else where no one can see them. Another aspect that I like about e-sports is you get the color commentary along with the visual part of the game. This is super important because most fans wouldn't know what is going on if there was no commentary when the video game is being played. This is very different to other sports in general since you never get commentary while attending a sporting event.
While I think that Overwatch League is going to be successful, there are other concerns that show that it might not be so successful. One of the biggest fears for e-sports is that you never know when the video game will become (or stay) popular or not. It might be great that 20 million people are playing your game right now but after 5 years, maybe there isn't any interest in the game at all. This really depends on the video game company itself, whether they will continue to develop their game or not. One concern is that there is already talk about Overwatch 2, which could vastly change the way Overwatch League is managed. If there is a new Overwatch game, this could be catastrophic to the new Overwatch League. I think it will be interesting to watch and see how the Overwatch League and how much success it will have in the next few years. I think other video game companies are also going to be taking notes and whether or not their own game could become as successful as the Overwatch League. Although I think the Overwatch League will be successful in the short term, I don't see just one game becoming a great success in the long term. Video games are constantly changing so I don't think something like the Overwatch League will be around 40 to 50 years from now. E-sports in general will be around for a long time even though the video games that we will be playing will constantly changing over time.
Wednesday, December 13, 2017
Tuesday, November 28, 2017
Diablo 3 Season 12 Update
Well I'm off to a flying start on Diablo 3's Season 12. I decided to play a necromancer this season since I wanted to play it last season but I knew everyone else would be playing it on season 11. My necromancer started out pretty good. The Haedrig's gift this season was the Trag'Oul's set, which is the blood set. It is very good early on because it does a lot damage. The only problem with this set is that your health fluctuates a lot, which is very dangerous for hardcore mode. I was able to do most of my seasonal journey with this set, the blood nova is extremely fun to play with. After playing with the Trag'Oul's set, I decided to play with the Inarius set. The Inarius is also very fun to play with because when you trigger Bone Armor, it creates a circling bone armor around you doing damage to near by enemies. This is often called the Bonestorm build and is extremely fast and the damage output is pretty good. I am using this set right now just so I can do greater rifts and regular rifts done quickly. My Inarius set is very tanky, it has damage reduction from the Unity ring, the Aquila Curiass and the Inarius set damage reduction as well. Although this set is fun to play with, the maximum greater rift that it can do isn't as high as other necromancer sets.
I also tried playing with the Rathma's set, which is the pet build set. This set uses the skeletal mages and is pretty fun to play with also. The problem with this set is that your defenses is not very high so you are very vulnerable when there is enemies that can ignore your pets and come running into you. I might try to build a high end Rathma set but I don't like the fact that you are pretty vulnerable. Another option for a higher greater rift clear is playing with the Pestilence set. This set is currently doing the highest of all the necromancer greater rifts. I haven't played with this set so I am kind of hesitant of playing with this set. I will probably watch some more guides on YouTube so I know what to expect when I try this set.
Overall, I am having lots of fun playing with the necromancer this season. I am already at paragon 700 and I hope to reach at least paragon 900 when the season is over. I have done a greater rift 72 with the Inarius set but I know that I could even doing a higher greater rift with one of the other sets. I am also almost done with the season journey as well. I only need to finish 2 more objectives for the conqueror seasonal journey and 1 more from the destroyer seasonal journey. I should be able to finish completely the seasonal journey very soon. After this season is over, I want to play with the witch doctor again because I love playing with the Helltooth set and I won't play with the witch doctor until this season is over.
I also tried playing with the Rathma's set, which is the pet build set. This set uses the skeletal mages and is pretty fun to play with also. The problem with this set is that your defenses is not very high so you are very vulnerable when there is enemies that can ignore your pets and come running into you. I might try to build a high end Rathma set but I don't like the fact that you are pretty vulnerable. Another option for a higher greater rift clear is playing with the Pestilence set. This set is currently doing the highest of all the necromancer greater rifts. I haven't played with this set so I am kind of hesitant of playing with this set. I will probably watch some more guides on YouTube so I know what to expect when I try this set.
Overall, I am having lots of fun playing with the necromancer this season. I am already at paragon 700 and I hope to reach at least paragon 900 when the season is over. I have done a greater rift 72 with the Inarius set but I know that I could even doing a higher greater rift with one of the other sets. I am also almost done with the season journey as well. I only need to finish 2 more objectives for the conqueror seasonal journey and 1 more from the destroyer seasonal journey. I should be able to finish completely the seasonal journey very soon. After this season is over, I want to play with the witch doctor again because I love playing with the Helltooth set and I won't play with the witch doctor until this season is over.
Monday, November 6, 2017
My BlizzCon 2017 Review
I just got back from BlizzCon and I wanted to write a review of what I did there. I had a lot of fun and I can't wait to go back again. I decided to fly out to Anaheim on Thursday because I had already gone to Disneyland before and I didn't need the extra day(s) to do other stuff while in Anaheim. So when I arrived in Anaheim, it was already about 1:30pm. I quickly got my badge and I lined up for the Blizzard store. The lineup for the store was pretty long, I ended up finishing by about 4:00pm. Things that I bought was the goody bad booster pack, the key art magnet (which I always get every year I go to BlizzCon), a Diablo Halls of the Blind t-shirt and a Diablo toque. I had already bought a Funko Pop D.Va, a blue murloc mug and the Snowball plushie before I went to BlizzCon so that I wouldn't be tempted to buy those things at BlizzCon and have to carry all those things back in my luggage. The goody bag this year was a backpack, which was pretty cool. Other stuff that came with the goody bag were some badges, a pin, a backpack hanger and a Cute but Deadly figurine. When I finished with the Blizzard store, I went back to my hotel and took a little nap. Later on, I managed to text my friends and meet them in person for the first time. I was a little nervous about texting because I didn't know if my phone was going to work correctly while I was in the US. We ate dinner together and then I stayed with my friends until about midnight.
On Friday, I woke up around 7:00am and I was going to meet my friends at 8:00 but they weren't ready yet and then I lined up for BlizzCon. It wasn't too bad of a lineup. By 8:30, it was pretty long. The bad thing about this year's BlizzCon was that there were two entrances. There was one going into the main floor and another for the extended convention area (North Hall) . I was trying to go into North Hall but it seemed that everyone was to be pushed towards the Mythic Stage which was really strange. I guess they didn't want people to be running around the convention floor while the opening ceremony was about to start. I managed to find my friends in all that chaos and we ended up sitting in the middle row, about 4 sections back from the main stage. I couldn't see the main stage at all but I had a good view of the video monitors so it ended up being ok. The opening ceremony was pretty cool but not as exciting as years past. There was the WoW expansion announcement, a classic WoW announcement, a new Ovewatch character (Moira), a new Overwatch map (Blizzard World), a Reinhardt cinematic, a new Hearthstone expansion (Kobolds and Catacombs), Hanzo and Alexstraza reveal for Heroes of the Storm, StarCraft 2 free to play and no Diablo mentioned at all. After the opening ceremony, I went over to the Diablo area and tried out the demo station. This year, Diablo had set up a convention exclusive greater rift, where you had to beat certain bosses to go into the next level. You could pick from the 6 classes and each had their own set you could play with. The witch doctor had the Jade set and it was pretty easy playing with that set (since it was the same set that they showed form 2 years ago). After I played Diabo, I went over to get posters and signatures from Diablo, Heroes of the Storm and Overwatch. I tried out the Overwatch demo, which featured Moira and Blizzard World map. I ended up stomping the other team while playing D.Va and Zenyatta. After that I went over to the Heroic stage to see the Diablo panel. The Heroic stage was by far one of the worst stages I have ever been to. There was limited seating at that stage and they were only putting people in a couple at a time. The Diablo panel was pretty good, although it seemed that they had something else to say for that panel. After the panel, the Westmarch Workshop had its meet and greet so I ended seeing Leviathan and Neinball again. I also saw other Diablo content creators such as Zhanji, BigDaddyDen and Bluddshed. After that I went back to my hotel and then went over to California Pizza Kitchen to have my lunch. After I ate, I went over to the Darkmoon Faire and watched the Community Contest over on the Epic Stage. I played on the Hearthstone demo after watching the Community Contest and it was pretty cool. I also managed to get a temporary tattoo from the Darkmoon Faire. By 9:30pm, I met with my friends again and we went over to the Rainforest Café over by downtown Disney to have our dinner. After dinner, we went to the movie theaters to watch Thor Ragnarok.
On Saturday, I woke up at 8:00am and I lined up around 8:30am. One of the things that I first wanted to see on Saturday was the Overwatch World Cup. Overwatch arena was really cool, it sort of reminded me of a smaller hockey arena. Team Canada was playing Team Sweden in the first semifinal game and it was very exciting to watch. The match was very intense, Sweden was doing great early on but Canada came back very strong. It all came down to the final map on Oasis. Canada managed to get a early lead and held on to win that semifinal game. There were huge cheers for Team Canada because there were lots of Canadians watching that match. After the semifinal game, I really wanted to buy a Overwatch Team Canada uniform. Unfortunately, they were all out of small, medium and large uniforms so I ended up buying a x-large uniform (which isn't too bad when I am wearing it). I went over to the food trucks to eat my lunch and it was very tasty. After lunch, I went over the Heartstone area to get my Hearthstone poster and signatures. Also, I got to meet Hafu and Trump and also got their signatures. After that, I went over to Epic Stage to watch the Diablo community panel. The panel was ok, it was only 30 minutes long (though it should have been longer). My friends wanted to do WoW dungeon run together but I ended up watching the gold medal game between Team Canada and Team South Korea. Although Team Canada was able to take one map from Team South Korea, the Koreans were playing too good and ended up winning the Gold medal game. Although Team Canada lost, I was really proud of them since it meant that Canada was one of the top teams in the world of Overwatch. I was going to play on the WoW questing demo but I ended meeting up my friends to watch the Muse concert. The Muse concert was really good (it was way better than the Blink 182 concert that I attended). I am not a huge Muse fan but I do recognize some of their songs. My two favourites are Uprising and Knights of Cydonia, which were the last two songs that they played. After the concert, my friends and I walked around the convention floor. It was really cool to see the various e-sport stages up close. We ended up eating at an Italian restaurant for dinner (I had some very good pasta). And that was the end for BlizzCon. Like I said before, I had an amazing time there and I can't wait to go back sometime again.
On Friday, I woke up around 7:00am and I was going to meet my friends at 8:00 but they weren't ready yet and then I lined up for BlizzCon. It wasn't too bad of a lineup. By 8:30, it was pretty long. The bad thing about this year's BlizzCon was that there were two entrances. There was one going into the main floor and another for the extended convention area (North Hall) . I was trying to go into North Hall but it seemed that everyone was to be pushed towards the Mythic Stage which was really strange. I guess they didn't want people to be running around the convention floor while the opening ceremony was about to start. I managed to find my friends in all that chaos and we ended up sitting in the middle row, about 4 sections back from the main stage. I couldn't see the main stage at all but I had a good view of the video monitors so it ended up being ok. The opening ceremony was pretty cool but not as exciting as years past. There was the WoW expansion announcement, a classic WoW announcement, a new Ovewatch character (Moira), a new Overwatch map (Blizzard World), a Reinhardt cinematic, a new Hearthstone expansion (Kobolds and Catacombs), Hanzo and Alexstraza reveal for Heroes of the Storm, StarCraft 2 free to play and no Diablo mentioned at all. After the opening ceremony, I went over to the Diablo area and tried out the demo station. This year, Diablo had set up a convention exclusive greater rift, where you had to beat certain bosses to go into the next level. You could pick from the 6 classes and each had their own set you could play with. The witch doctor had the Jade set and it was pretty easy playing with that set (since it was the same set that they showed form 2 years ago). After I played Diabo, I went over to get posters and signatures from Diablo, Heroes of the Storm and Overwatch. I tried out the Overwatch demo, which featured Moira and Blizzard World map. I ended up stomping the other team while playing D.Va and Zenyatta. After that I went over to the Heroic stage to see the Diablo panel. The Heroic stage was by far one of the worst stages I have ever been to. There was limited seating at that stage and they were only putting people in a couple at a time. The Diablo panel was pretty good, although it seemed that they had something else to say for that panel. After the panel, the Westmarch Workshop had its meet and greet so I ended seeing Leviathan and Neinball again. I also saw other Diablo content creators such as Zhanji, BigDaddyDen and Bluddshed. After that I went back to my hotel and then went over to California Pizza Kitchen to have my lunch. After I ate, I went over to the Darkmoon Faire and watched the Community Contest over on the Epic Stage. I played on the Hearthstone demo after watching the Community Contest and it was pretty cool. I also managed to get a temporary tattoo from the Darkmoon Faire. By 9:30pm, I met with my friends again and we went over to the Rainforest Café over by downtown Disney to have our dinner. After dinner, we went to the movie theaters to watch Thor Ragnarok.
On Saturday, I woke up at 8:00am and I lined up around 8:30am. One of the things that I first wanted to see on Saturday was the Overwatch World Cup. Overwatch arena was really cool, it sort of reminded me of a smaller hockey arena. Team Canada was playing Team Sweden in the first semifinal game and it was very exciting to watch. The match was very intense, Sweden was doing great early on but Canada came back very strong. It all came down to the final map on Oasis. Canada managed to get a early lead and held on to win that semifinal game. There were huge cheers for Team Canada because there were lots of Canadians watching that match. After the semifinal game, I really wanted to buy a Overwatch Team Canada uniform. Unfortunately, they were all out of small, medium and large uniforms so I ended up buying a x-large uniform (which isn't too bad when I am wearing it). I went over to the food trucks to eat my lunch and it was very tasty. After lunch, I went over the Heartstone area to get my Hearthstone poster and signatures. Also, I got to meet Hafu and Trump and also got their signatures. After that, I went over to Epic Stage to watch the Diablo community panel. The panel was ok, it was only 30 minutes long (though it should have been longer). My friends wanted to do WoW dungeon run together but I ended up watching the gold medal game between Team Canada and Team South Korea. Although Team Canada was able to take one map from Team South Korea, the Koreans were playing too good and ended up winning the Gold medal game. Although Team Canada lost, I was really proud of them since it meant that Canada was one of the top teams in the world of Overwatch. I was going to play on the WoW questing demo but I ended meeting up my friends to watch the Muse concert. The Muse concert was really good (it was way better than the Blink 182 concert that I attended). I am not a huge Muse fan but I do recognize some of their songs. My two favourites are Uprising and Knights of Cydonia, which were the last two songs that they played. After the concert, my friends and I walked around the convention floor. It was really cool to see the various e-sport stages up close. We ended up eating at an Italian restaurant for dinner (I had some very good pasta). And that was the end for BlizzCon. Like I said before, I had an amazing time there and I can't wait to go back sometime again.
Sunday, October 22, 2017
Diablo 3 Season 11 Review
Well season 11 of Diablo 3 just ended and I wanted to give a review of what I accomplished this season. This season went very well for me even though I didn't play as much compared to the other seasons. I ended up reaching paragon level 934, which put me in rank 424 for the US servers. My hardcore witch doctor ended up doing a greater rift 81 in about 12 minutes. This is pretty good since my previous best was also a greater rift 81 but in 14 minutes. The greater rift 81 put me at rank 32 for all hardcore witch doctor on the US server. This is the highest rank I have ever achieved in a season so I am very happy that I was able to reach this rank.
I was mostly playing with the Helltooth set for the witch doctor again. I tried playing with the Legacy of Nightmare spirit barrage set but I didn't like playing with it. I was able to do a greater rift 81 with about a month left in the season but that is when I lost my witch doctor due to a disconnect. I think I could have done a higher greater rift if I hadn't lost my witch doctor since I was able to do the greater rift 81 with 3 minutes left. After losing my witch doctor, I quickly made another witch doctor but I wasn't motivated to try reaching a high greater rift again (my new witch doctor has only about 5 hours of play time on it). It was pretty good that the season was going to end soon so I didn't have to try spend lots of hours trying to build my witch doctor again. I was able to take a good break from Diablo but I was kind of nervous about losing my ranking. I think I was near rank 24 or so when I first hit greater rift 81 but several people passed me later and I finished at rank 32. Although I didn't finish my seasonal journey, I did complete it up to Conqueror again.
My non-seasonal paragon level now sits at 1451, which puts me near the top 500 US hardcore players. For next season, I was hoping to try out the necromancer because I knew that lots of people were going to play the necromancer in season 11. Patch 2.6.1 for next season is going to change lots of the sets so the top builds for each class is going to change a lot. Even though I am tempted to play with the witch doctor again for season 12, I think this is a good season to try a different class. Eventually, I also want to try out the wizard since I haven't played with that class for a very long time. Season 12 is going to start after BlizzCon so there is lots of down time for most of the players. I can't wait for BlizzCon to arrive (there's only 2 weeks left :D).
I was mostly playing with the Helltooth set for the witch doctor again. I tried playing with the Legacy of Nightmare spirit barrage set but I didn't like playing with it. I was able to do a greater rift 81 with about a month left in the season but that is when I lost my witch doctor due to a disconnect. I think I could have done a higher greater rift if I hadn't lost my witch doctor since I was able to do the greater rift 81 with 3 minutes left. After losing my witch doctor, I quickly made another witch doctor but I wasn't motivated to try reaching a high greater rift again (my new witch doctor has only about 5 hours of play time on it). It was pretty good that the season was going to end soon so I didn't have to try spend lots of hours trying to build my witch doctor again. I was able to take a good break from Diablo but I was kind of nervous about losing my ranking. I think I was near rank 24 or so when I first hit greater rift 81 but several people passed me later and I finished at rank 32. Although I didn't finish my seasonal journey, I did complete it up to Conqueror again.
My non-seasonal paragon level now sits at 1451, which puts me near the top 500 US hardcore players. For next season, I was hoping to try out the necromancer because I knew that lots of people were going to play the necromancer in season 11. Patch 2.6.1 for next season is going to change lots of the sets so the top builds for each class is going to change a lot. Even though I am tempted to play with the witch doctor again for season 12, I think this is a good season to try a different class. Eventually, I also want to try out the wizard since I haven't played with that class for a very long time. Season 12 is going to start after BlizzCon so there is lots of down time for most of the players. I can't wait for BlizzCon to arrive (there's only 2 weeks left :D).
Sunday, October 8, 2017
BlizzCon 2017 Predictions
We are about a month away from BlizzCon 2017 and I am really excited about going to Anaheim again to see all the things Blizzard Entertainment will present at BlizzCon. There have been some news already about what we can expect to see at BlizzCon this year. First of all, there won't be any new Diablo news this year sadly. It is sort of expected since Diablo has been working on Patch 2.6.1, which is a pretty big patch since it will re-work many of the set items. Season 11 will be finished in about 2 weeks and the next season (season 12) will start one week after BlizzCon. I have more thoughts about Diablo later. Second of all, the closing act for BlizzCon this year will be Muse. I have never been a fan of Muse (although I do know some of their songs) so I probably won't be in a rush to see their show.
As for the other Blizzard games, I think they will be announcing a new expansion for World of Warcraft. It is very likely since Legion has been out for a long time and that there is a WoW panel directly after the opening ceremony this year. I think Heartstone is in a similar place with WoW. There will probably be another expansion announced for Hearthstone. In Overwatch, I am hoping we get news on a new character or a new map. It looks likely that we will get a new character since Overwatch seems to announce about 3 new characters each year. I am also hoping that they will show a new animated short for one of their older characters (D.va or Lucio maybe?). Heroes of the Storm will probably announce more characters, most likely they will be Overwatch characters since they have been putting many Overwatch characters in Heroes now.
As for Diablo, I am kind of sad that they won't announce anything new this year. I was hoping we might be getting a new class to play (maybe Druid?) but I don't think the Diablo team has started working on a new class just yet since the Necromancer just came out this year. Many people point out that Diablo has only 1 hour of panels this year at BlizzCon and that they think that Diablo 3 is now in maintenance mode. I don't think that is true because I think another class will definitely be announced some time next year. If they don't, then that might mean that the next Diablo game might be ready to be announced. I mostly think that development time for Diablo is way longer compared to the other Blizzard games so we can't expect Diablo to keep pushing out new content on a fairly regular basis. I think the perfect time to announce something like the Druid would be at GamesCon 2018 over in Germany since the Druid has its roots over in Europe.
It is nice to write a blog post again since it has been a long time between blog posts for me. My last blog post was in August so I am sorry about not writing a blog post in September. I had written some of my thoughts into a fairly large blog post but I am having trouble putting all of my thoughts into that blog post. There wasn't much news anyway during September so I was really having a hard time coming up with a topic to write about. Hopefully, in the near future, there will be more news about which I can make topics of.
As for the other Blizzard games, I think they will be announcing a new expansion for World of Warcraft. It is very likely since Legion has been out for a long time and that there is a WoW panel directly after the opening ceremony this year. I think Heartstone is in a similar place with WoW. There will probably be another expansion announced for Hearthstone. In Overwatch, I am hoping we get news on a new character or a new map. It looks likely that we will get a new character since Overwatch seems to announce about 3 new characters each year. I am also hoping that they will show a new animated short for one of their older characters (D.va or Lucio maybe?). Heroes of the Storm will probably announce more characters, most likely they will be Overwatch characters since they have been putting many Overwatch characters in Heroes now.
As for Diablo, I am kind of sad that they won't announce anything new this year. I was hoping we might be getting a new class to play (maybe Druid?) but I don't think the Diablo team has started working on a new class just yet since the Necromancer just came out this year. Many people point out that Diablo has only 1 hour of panels this year at BlizzCon and that they think that Diablo 3 is now in maintenance mode. I don't think that is true because I think another class will definitely be announced some time next year. If they don't, then that might mean that the next Diablo game might be ready to be announced. I mostly think that development time for Diablo is way longer compared to the other Blizzard games so we can't expect Diablo to keep pushing out new content on a fairly regular basis. I think the perfect time to announce something like the Druid would be at GamesCon 2018 over in Germany since the Druid has its roots over in Europe.
It is nice to write a blog post again since it has been a long time between blog posts for me. My last blog post was in August so I am sorry about not writing a blog post in September. I had written some of my thoughts into a fairly large blog post but I am having trouble putting all of my thoughts into that blog post. There wasn't much news anyway during September so I was really having a hard time coming up with a topic to write about. Hopefully, in the near future, there will be more news about which I can make topics of.
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