I hope there’s a really killer book to be made out there about the development leading up to the WiiU, because it would be fascinating to know the decisions and challenges that lead to the followup to a frankly insane console (The amount of Wiis sold is still pretty staggering) lead to a pretty tepid Wiiu launch must…

What do you think people misunderstand most about your job? Or of reporting on games in general?

I wonder how much balance issues like this are going to ‘matter’. There’s going to be a huge informational advantage here as the game develops and players organize their knowledge, but the larger ‘meta’ is going to only matter to a player’s local area, which is going to be dependent on how many people in the local…

Mcree disappeared almost entirely competitive before the change.

He needed a buff, it was just a question of how much. This might be too much—hard to say. He still fills an extremely weird niche as a low-mobility anti-flanker (note he’s an ‘anti flanker’ only once every 8 seconds). Comparisons to Widowmaker spring to…

So... are the Stormtroopers actually shooting at the lightsaber? Is this like the Star Wars equivalent of a dad teaching his kid how to bat at baseball? I think you actually hear them kind of feeling sorry for you halfway through.

Also, the future, for the low low price of $900. Huh...

Really, the answer these game companies are looking for is ultimately going to be the one they don’t like; constant review and corrective behavior that they want. There is no magic algorithim, or game design, or any kind of fix that’s going to automate this process—honestly, a big part of the problem with some game…

So, in terms of Niche, Ana is probably going to end up as a backup support at best. The ability to drop a burst heal on a beefy target (she can heal almost 150 health on a single target inside of two seconds, or can throw her ‘nade as an AOE heal for 100 to several targets). She’ll probably hang out at around soldier…

Blizzard actually tweeted a response to someone inquiring about Ana being Sombra with ‘Who is Sombra?’ in Spanish. It’s entirely possible she’s a new hero, as the name is actually a *separate* teaser item then the one that teased Ana (people were just conflating the two as talking about the same character).

She does not. The handgun is her ‘sleepy gun’.

I mean, she’s still a 150 health character with limited mobility. Running into a cluster of enemies to spray a few rounds of pistol shot while you wait for the mech to explode is still pretty easy to punish. (Mcree kills her in a headshot/body shot from decent range now, easy to do while backpedaling).

If I’m really annoyed I’ll usually swap to Mcree.

“Whoa there...”

Honestly most Tracers worth their salt will either stay clear enough away that D.va’s pea-shooters aren’t a threat even to her and focus on peppering someone a bit more valuable than a 400-health armored tank that’s really only dangerous up close, or just swap out to someone D.va is a little more nervous about. I…

A good habit to establish is a ‘rhythm’ with her encounters that basically boils down to this:

My very limited experience in competitive mode has been mostly positive with the caveat being that you’re somewhat expected to be communicative (that means a mic) and at least be ready to play a semi-serious game. It meant mostly calling out threats and being willing to respond to strategic changes (meaning character…

I basically got the GearVR for free because it was time for a phone upgrade and navigating apps for it through the Occulus store is pure hell. God help me if I heard about something in particular and want to check it out, because I basically have to dig it out of it’s nested menus. It’s honestly one of the reasons I…

Full D.va teams can essentially do the same things, staggering their E’s to block shots, and just rushing together to soak up the turret with crap tons of HP. Both teams CAN be countered, but gimmick-team comps always have an advantage in pick up games because your average pug isn’t going to react in anything even…

“I asked to make one and asked to make sure he’d be ok with me taking whatever was in the books. He said yes.”

Which is always a question that should give you pause as a DM, as this almost invariably means the player found something REALLY cheesy and he’s trying prepare for the fact that he is quite probably going to…

So, recently we were doing Death House, which is the new Curse of Strahd adventure for the hardcover. This was adventure league organized play, which tends to skew groups in the direction of the murderhobo and generally more casual play. It’s also very unpredictable. SPOILERS, of course, so caveat emptor.

Said…

“Virtual reality experience Arachnophobia is an application aimed at helping people overcome “irrational fears” of extremely venomous and aggressive spiders. After playing for five minutes, I’ve decided to hang on to my fear a bit longer.”

If that’s true, (and it doesn’t seem like it is) the process it’s doing it is…

That’s the thing about phobias. They are by definition extreme reactions that don’t seem reasonable, so people, socially, assume you’re playing up the reaction intentionally because their own rational assessment says ‘It’s not that bad.’ The disproportionate hysteria can be a part of that.

My own reactions to spiders…