Friday, September 30, 2016

Battleborn goes F2P


Battleborn will go free to play later this year! A close source to Gearbox Software said this to Kotaku. They said its going free as early as November. The unnamed source also said the game was initially going to launch as free to play but that 2K changed that.

"Sales have slowed for Battleborn since its launch in early May, and the game has struggled to topple its closest competitor, Overwatch, which arrived at the end of that month. Comparisons between the two have often left Battleborn as the butt of a joke, despite some positive reviews.

Transforming the $60 retail release into a free-to-play title is not unprecedented for 2K, whose controversial survival-based multiplayer game Evolve has found renewed success since it became a free download. 2K pulled the paid version of Evolve this summer, only to relaunch it under the name Evolve Stage 2 shortly thereafter." (Polygon)

This is pretty cool news indeed. I've watched my brother play a lot of Battleborn and it does look like a super sick game. But that $60 price tag has made me not want to play, plus I have Overwatch, which only cost me $40. The games are a lot different, especially and mainly the characters and the combat. I don't think combat in Battleborn is as fast or fluid as it is in Overwatch is but once it goes free to play I'm definitely going to be trying it out. So should you if you haven't played it already.

Nice!

Ana NERF, Widowmaker, and Junkrat BUFF-September 22 PTR Patch Notes


Ana has only just begun to make pro Overwatch teams and now Blizzard thinks she's too strong, so they've nerfed her. The tank heavy meta really focuses on the nano boost ability and its super fast charge. They nerfed the ultimate cost by 20% which means it takes that much longer to charge up.

Ana
  • Nano Boost
    • Ultimate cost has been increased by 20%
  • Biotic Grenade
    • Radius has been increased from 3 to 4 meters
Developer Comments: So far, we haven't seen any indication that Ana is too strong overall, but her ultimate charges a little too fast, especially considering the impact it can have on a match. Also, her Biotic Grenades are getting a small boost to help her hit multiple targets.

Now I haven't had that much time to play PTR to test her out but I've heard from YouTubers that her ultimate charges up fast still, albeit just not as fast. For sure its a nerf but its not a super duper heavy nerf. However, this nerf was a little too fast given that this 3 tank 3 healer meta just started. I hope this doesn't get rid of this new change in the game because its a good change.

The biotic grenade range was increased. This is great! You'll be able to hit allies as well as enemies just a tiny bit further. Not too shabby. Not that much of a buff but acceptable for our favorite healing sniper mom.

Now for the buffs, starting with Widowmaker.

Widowmaker
  • Widow's Kiss
    • Scoping-in animation time has been reduced from 0.5 to 0.3 seconds
Developer Comments: This change will help Widowmaker acquire new targets more quickly and speed up her reaction time in fast-paced situations.

In the past it was popular to have quick scoping Widowmakers but they ended up changing it so that you couldn't rescope until the scope animation had finished. This ended Widowmaker pretty much since then. This won't bring back the old school Widowmaker killer quick scopes but it might make her picked a bit more often.

And then Junkrat got a buff.

Junkrat
  • RIP-Tire
    • Ability now activates more quickly
Developer Comments: Junkrat can be an extremely effective hero in the right hands, but RIP-Tire often felt underpowered when compared to his counterparts.

So the Rip-tire now activates more quickly. He's not seen much in pro play because he just fuels Zarya's shield and charge but his problem wasn't so much of casting his ultimate super fast. The problem is that his tire is super easy to destroy. The tire always gets shot before it gets close enough. They should've increased the speed of his tire instead. However, a buff is still a buff. This just isn't that effective for a better Junkrat. I do dig Junkrat and this is still cool.

General Updates

Static cameras are now supported in spectator mode. This is awesome for increasing the view-ability of the game (for esports). Team names can now be edited in Custom Games, which you can also pause! There was a raise in volume for Hanzo's Dragonstrike voice-line when using the wolf skins. Heroes hit by Ana's nano-boost now have a voice-line informing of who's getting the boost. And then there's a voice-line for when Reinhardt's shield drops. There's also news about potential Symmetra buffs.

We expect all this which is now only on the PTR to appear on the base game in a few weeks, like they always do. I'm a bit annoyed that they decided to nerf Ana when she's still super fresh and is just making her way into the competitive scene. I hope she stays in the limelight, at least in the professional scene. I'll still be playing her in competitive, as long as someone else is playing a healer too. There's talks about possible future Symmetra buffs so expect that in the near future. I'm also looking forward to hearing more about the Sombra reveal during October.

Get in there, you're powered up!

Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Heroes of the Storm Patch Notes-September 27, 2016





The latest Heroes of the Storm patch was a biggie. Gaming changing. Great. Incredible. All those jazzy kinda words. Blizzard added Zarya from Overwatch into the game as well as another Starcraft themed map. Let me lay out some of the patch notes for you and explain.


New Hero: Zarya

Aleksandra Zaryanova is one of the world's strongest women and was a promising athlete, but all that changed when the Siberian omnium reawakened. As a soldier in the Russian Defense Force, she now proudly uses her strength to protect the ones she loves.
Trait
  • Energy
    • Each time Zarya’s Personal Barrier or Shield Ally absorbs 10 damage, her Energy is increased by 1. Each point of Energy increases Zarya’s damage by 2%. After 0.5 seconds, Energy decays by 3 per second.
Basic Abilities
  • Particle Grenade (Q)
    • Launch a Particle Grenade that deals damage to enemies within a small area. Deals 50% damage to Structures.
  • Personal Barrier (W)
    • Gain a Shield that absorbs damage for 3 seconds.
  • Shield Ally (E)
    • Grants an allied Hero a Shield that absorbs damage for 3 seconds.
Heroic Abilities
  • Graviton Surge (R)
    • Launch a gravity bomb that detonates after 1 second and draws enemy Heroes toward the center for 2.5 seconds.
  • Expulsion Zone (R)
    • Launch a gravity bomb that deals light damage and creates an expulsion zone for 3.5 seconds. Enemies who enter the affected area are knocked back and have their Movement Speed reduced by 50% for 1 second. 
     
Zarya is pretty cool. Right now I'm trying to save up the gold so I can buy her. I saw her in every game I played today and she is a pretty strong tank. She seems to have a lot of offensive power too, at least in the games I played. Zarya's were getting like 30 assists easy and plenty of kills to boot. I really love how her ultimate from Overwatch, Graviton Surge made it into Heroes. Not gonna lie, it does feel a lot like Overwatch when she uses that ability. And you know you're going to do a ton of damage to your enemies in that gravity bomb. She's awesome. I'll probably enjoy playing her when I get the 15,000 gold to purchase her. 

New Battleground-Warhead Junction

Once a testing facility for nuclear weapons, Warhead Junction has since fallen into ruin. However, the site's abandonment hasn't stopped its glitchy adjutant from continuing to produce and hand out nuclear weapons. Join the arms race of Warhead Junction, build up your stockpile, and rain hell on your enemies!

Warhead Deployment
  • Multiple Warheads will spawn periodically across the battleground.
Collect Warheads
  • Pick up a Warhead to activate your Nuke. Use it or you will drop it when you die!
Call Down the Thunder
  • Launch Nukes to devastate the enemy team's fortifications.

Performance

General
  • Additional improvements have been made to Heroes of the Storm’s overall frame rate, affecting all game modes and Battlegrounds.
This is major! Everyone that's played Heroes has been affected by lag or had frame rate issues. For instance, I used to be able to run Heroes fine on my laptop but suddenly whenever I went on to play it became too laggy to even run properly. It's good to see that Blizzard is making improvements to the frame rate. Maybe they could work on improving the netcode too? 

Shop

Bundles
  • New Bundles
    • Thunder Guard Zarya Bundle – Available until October 11, 2016.
    • Raider Rexxar Bundle – Available until October 11, 2016.
    • Undying Legends Bundle – Available until October 18, 2016.
    • Ultimate Undying Legends Bundle – Available until October 18, 2016.
New Hero
  • Zarya has been added to the in-game Shop.
Mounts
  • Returning Mounts
    • Judgement Charger
  • Removed Mounts
    • Lunar Dragon
    • Spectre Phantom
    • Dire Wolf
Skins
  • Raider Rexxar
  • Thunder Guard Zarya
  • Master Zarya
Price Changes
  • Diablo’s prices have been reduced to $3.49 USD and 2,000 Gold.
  • Muradin’s prices have been increased to $6.49 USD and 4,000 Gold.
Everyone that plays mobas knows its cool to have the sweet looking skins. I'm pretty proud of the skins I've bought in both Overwatch and Heroes of the Storm. I have some of the best in both games. It's pretty rad going into battle looking like a suave dapper character. I'm already interested in the Thunder Guard Zarya and the Raider Rexxar skins. Both of which look awesome. 

There was a ton of changes to a bunch of heroes as well. But the biggies here is the addition of Zarya and the Starcraft map Warhead Junction. Warhead is an okay battleground. It doesn't bring anything new to the table, just a fun gamemode to add to the mix. You basically just pick up nukes and you can nuke your enemies' base or wherever you want. If you die you lose the nuke. Nothing too crazy but pretty fun. It's great to see Heroes of the Storm getting some much needed love and attention from Blizzard. I want to see Heroes stay in the limelight it has, however dim that may be compared to League and Dota. It's still a great game. I enjoy playing it over Overwatch even sometimes because I can just relax and listen to music while I play. 

I've heard a lot of great albums playing Heroes. A lot of metal but a lot of jazz too. Anyways, I can't wait to get Zarya and add her to my tank playing roster.

Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Ice Nine Kills Concert Plus Birthday


This weekend I celebrated my birthday. For two days straight. Saturday and Sunday. It was awesome! On Sunday, the actual day of my bday we went to Hurricane Harbor and went to a concert at the White Oak Music Hall right here in Encino. Here I'd like to discuss the concert.

The venue is pretty small and very loud. Not loud enough to pierce my ears so hard that they hurt for too long thankfully. But loud enough to sound deafening in that small venue. The first band that played had a lot of sound troubles. This became a trend as the night went on. They had some major feedback problems from one of the speakers and it cut into their vocals and stuff. It seemed cool that they had a hot girl singer doing clean vocals with a guy doing the screaming growly death metal stuff but the girl's cleans weren't very good. Out of tune mess. At least she was hot. XD

There was another band with a good growler but the clean vocals guy just had the most annoying nasally high pitched voice. If you have a high pitched voice you should stay focused on the melody and sing in tune. How people don't understand this is beyond me. Not the best singers that's for sure.

There were some people moshing in a small pit but it wasn't until later on that the pit got a little crazy. Remember, its a small place so you can't really mosh too hard without hurting someone. My friend got a little hurt by these two guys and his shoulder is a little fucked up still. Kinda funny but it must suck.

This was pretty weird but when the bands were done playing they played this post-bop jazz music pretty loudly. I thought it was strange that they playing jazz loudly to feverish metal fans during the setups. It would've been better if they played metal music, or just no music at all. However, I did enjoy it for a little while until I kept thinking that I was gonna arrive at the fourth floor. XD

The next important thing to take note on was this rap nu-metal band. They went pretty fucking hard. The rap with nu-metal thing has been done to death in the 90s so I wasn't impressed that they were playing a stale style of music. However, I was impressed with the singer. The rest of the band, not so much. The singer could do aggressive screaming and rap pretty well. However, with only a mediocre band and riffs he can only do so much.

None of the guitar players in any of these bands played guitar solos. Which begs the question, are they even good enough to play guitar solos? Or are guitar solos just not welcome in this style of metal? Has metal music taken a turn for the wimpy guitar worst, like the 90s alternate grunge era when it was frowned upon to be a long hair neoclassical guitar shredder? I feel like it has in some ways.

For example I think its great that some bands don't have solos. That's cool. But its always nice when a band has a guitarist who can deliver the goods in every form-and that has to include solos. I get it. Solo's aren't for everybody and not all fans like them. It's not commercial in today's musical market. But I still like them.

These kinds of bands that I saw all have a certain style that many other bands have. They play aggressive music but they all have clean vocals to go with the screaming. So its kinda emo but its also super heavy metal too. The music has a lot of breakdowns but nothing complicated to play, and nothing too memorable. It's not heavy on melody. It's a style of new metal-core I would say. The latest edition if you will. My friends dig these kinds of bands a lot. After seeing the best bands in this style at Warped Tour this summer I would say its pretty fun to see live. But I wouldn't really listen to it while relaxing at home. I have listened to some bands like Motionless in White and Sum 41 at home recently though.

There was also a lot of hot girls there. There was this short girl with black hair who was going fucking hard in the pit. She grabbed my friend's hand and threw him in the pit at one point. Pretty funny.

The headliner was Ice Nine Kills, this band we saw play back at the Warped Tour. They were the best band in terms of everything. The visual stage show, the sound (although they too had technical difficulties), and the music. Their breakdowns were super heavy and aggressive. They had a mascot there-someone wearing a Fox outfit carrying an axe (plastic axe). It was really funny because I was wearing my Starfox shirt my friend got me for my birthday and they were standing next to me looking at me. It looked like a girl's body in the Fox outfit but it could've been a guy just staring at me. Funny either way. 

Ice Nine slayed pretty hard. For a while here and there they made me feel like I was back at Warped Tour. It was a great feeling. Reliving my glory days of Warped Tour....The last song they played was a song I actually remembered from the Warped Tour. I headbanged pretty hard. It was awesome.

Although the other bands weren't that great I think Ice Nine Kills made up for that. They played a long set and were super professional. The White Oak venue is a pretty great place to see shows near my house and I'll most definitely go there again. Hope you all had a great weekend enjoying time with your family, friends, or co-workers. Take time throughout the week to listen to some great music, perhaps even see a show if you're free. Concerts are super fun!

Saturday, September 24, 2016

New Axe, A Four String Twanger



I just recently bought this bass pictured above. This is the Guitar Center picture of it. It's now sitting peacefully in my living room, along with my other axes. This includes a red Hagstrom Super Swede Les Paul modded with a Seymour Duncan Jazz Pickup in the neck and DiZimazio Super Distortion Pickup in the bridge, a white Jackson Dinky with a Floyd Rose, and a Granada classical guitar.

I'm definitely ballin' super hard when it comes to musical equipment. The best part is that equipped with this bass me and my friends will be able to get our band going. I'm teaching my friends guitar and bass respectively and so far they're doing a great job picking it up. They still have some way before they can jam or improvise together but I've been teaching them easy riffs that I improvise and I'm also teaching them Smoke on the Water and Iron Man. I've been so immersed in teaching them music every-time we hang out now. I'm officially a music teacher. I've had guitar students in the past but none of those other people had as much promise or showed off too much skill in early development of playing the instrument.

This is all pretty exciting. The bass was a gift to myself for my birthday but I was thinking that eventually my other friend would borrow it to practice and git good on his own as well as learning from me when we hang out. We'll wait and see. The first day he practiced the bass he said he was interested in buying his own. We did see cheap basses at Guitar Center for as low as 80 bucks.

I was thinking the band would start off pretty punk, and then as the guys get better and faster we'd improve the riffs, make them more metal, and add some jazzy flair in there as well. We'll have to wait and see.

As far as the drummer goes we're still unsure. I was thinking about just using a drum machine or programs for recording purposes until we figure out about live drums. We want our other good friend to be the drummer but he's always too low on dough to afford to buy a kit and he lives in a small apartment so we'd have to stash it at my house or something.

The difficulties of starting a band. Hopefully we can make some great music together! I'll keep you updated on the guys' improvement and my teaching methodology.

Thursday, September 22, 2016

Blizzard Killing In the Name of Battlenet


Nothing is going to change in terms of the way online gaming works with Blizzard games. Battlenet has been the tried and true online gaming service since 1997 and Diablo 2 days. They're not going to be changing the Battlenet name to anything else-they’re just going to refer to it as “Blizzard tech.”

Here’s Blizzard’s full memo:
We’re going to be transitioning away from using the Battle.net name for our gaming service and the functionality connected to it. Battle.net technology will continue to serve as the central nervous system for Blizzard games—nothing is changing in that regard. We’ll just be referring to it as Blizzard tech instead. You’ve already seen this recently with things like “Blizzard Streaming” and “Blizzard Voice,” and more changes are on the way.
When we created Battle.net, the idea of including a tailored online-gaming service together with your game was more of a novel concept, so we put a lot of focus on explaining what the service was and how it worked, including giving it a distinct name. Over time, though, we’ve seen that there’s been occasional confusion and inefficiencies related to having two separate identities under which everything falls—Blizzard and Battle.net. Given that built-in multiplayer support is a well-understood concept and more of a normal expectation these days, there isn’t as much of a need to maintain a separate identity for what is essentially our networking technology.
We just wanted to make sure everyone was aware as we moved forward with this change over the next several months; we’ll provide any relevant updates as the transition progresses. (Kotaku)
It sounds like Blizzard is doing this more for practical business reasons. Like they'd rather just have the company and all its services to be under the Blizzard tag. Can't blame them there. But here's where I can blame them. Battlenet is a great name for a great online gaming experience. Why change something that sounds so cool and brought so much joy to so many people. I feel like these days Blizzard is doing more business oriented things but they're still keeping up with the times in the gaming department and staying super relevant in the scene.

I'm still going to call it Battlenet. It just sounds right like that. Blizzard tech sounds lame, like wearing a suit to eat cake. What's the point?

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Paladins, A Discount Overwatch? Or Nah


Overwatch has made a big influence on the fps gaming market. However, Overwatch couldn't be so great or successful without Team Fortress 2. We have to give full credit for the hero shooter genre to Vale's Tf2. It's such a great game that spawned all these other cool shooters. A lot of Paladins players have been saying its a lot like Overwatch and Hi-Rez COO Todd Harris addressed the matter, in a statement provided to IGN.

"While Overwatch is a fine game, it was not the inspiration for Paladins," Harris wrote. "Game development is an interactive process with ideas coming from many past projects. For the hero shooter genre, the game that deserves the most credit is Team Fortress 2." Harris notes that, if anything, Paladins is a "fantasy version" of the studio's own class-based shooter Global Agenda, which itself was influenced by Team Fortress 2. According to Harris, "of the approximately 85 combat abilities currently in Paladins, the vast majority are from the game Global Agenda we made 10 years ago."

He continued: "Given the marketing of Overwatch many people do not even realize that some of our champions, like the mini-gun mech (Ruckus) and the ice block character (Evie), were available and playable in the Paladins Beta long before similar character abilities were shown in Overwatch. And specific features, such as Chests, were also demonstrated in Paladins ahead of Overwatch. People who are interested can see all this early gameplay footage on YouTube and come to their own conclusions." Todd Harris later took to Twitter, promising that he'd "post a bit more history / details tonight on Paladins subreddit." He's already done so, and it makes a strong case for Paladins being an evolution of Global Agenda, rather than a hasty Overwatch cash-in. (PcGamer)

I wish I could say a lot about Paladins but I'm currently having problems getting it to work on my computer. It's in open beta on Steam and anyone can download it whenever they want. I have played a few games from when it was working and I thought it was pretty fun.

The graphics are cartoony and colourful. That usually isn't my thing in games but Overwatch and Team Fortress 2 made me rethink that. The actual shooting style is not as polished or fluid as Overwatch. It feels more janky and less "weighty". For example I played as this ranger girl with a bow and her arrows didn't seem to have any heft when I pulled the bow back for shots. The actual gameplay itself is super fun! I had a lot of fun playing the closed beta and I wish I could get the game working again so I can play it.

Do I think this could be as successful or popular as Overwatch? Yes. Just for the fact that the beta is open now means that everyone can try it and the community can grow super fast and the devs can respond to problems and make changes accordingly. I also think this game should go the free to play route instead of the $40 pricetag that Overwatch wears. I don't think this game is worth $40 because it needs a lot more polish to have that extra shine that Overwatch has. There's also the fact that it gives Overwatch fans a taste of something different yet familar.

So if this game goes f2p (free to play) I think it could become as successful as Overwatch. Only time will tell. But generally Hi-Rez Studios makes great games that become popular in the esports scene. Can't see how this game would be any different in that regard.

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Ana's role in the current meta


I read an article about how players are terrified of getting nano-boosted by Ana's ult and thought why not write a short piece on her role in the meta.

First off, Ana can be played in a variety of ways. I tend to play more defensively but I can play her very offensively if need be and when I want to. A more defensive style has you sitting more in the back, actually sniping from the scope and healing from a distance. When you want to get in there with your team on the frontlines its better to just no scope headshot with your heals, and make sure to grenade enemies as well as allies.

When Ana first came out she was a nice addition but she didn't quite break the ever so popular Lucio Zenyatta combo. Most pro teams didn't start playing Ana's until fairly recently. Still a lot of the time they're running Lucio Zen. I feel like now she's used much more often, albeit usually always played offensively. So much to the point where I see a lot of Ana's in competitive don't do a great job healing. They usually leave the healing up to another healing, which is fine in some cases. But as a support player I think Ana is most effective healing your teammates rather than going for headshots.

Ana's being used a lot more and has become one of the most interesting characters in a first person shooter game (I really believe that, she's great! XD) but what really sets her apart from the other healing characters is her ultimate ability-nano boost. It increases damage, speed, and resilience. If you use it on the right ally at the right time you will always get team wipes with it. Or at least kill most of the enemy team.

It seems though that sometimes you'll boost a Soldier 76 or a Junkrat and nothing will happen. I think a big part of it is that players will get boosted and then panic hard looking around for kills, fishing hard for it and getting killed in the process or missing. I've been finding my nano boosts to be more effective on tanks like D.Va and Reinhardt especially. I'm going to keep up with that because it seems the tanks are always on the frontlines so they should be getting the boost.

One thing I like to do is use nano boost defensively if my team is losing. I'll wait until the enemy team is grouped and it looks like were about to lose the fight, boost the tank, and hold the point. It usually always works. Ana's role is to keep the team healed the entire time while your team fights. That's the way I play her. I focus more on keeping everybody's life bars full rather than going for kills. However, I will snipe people if they're shooting me or if they're in my face I will go for no scope headshots. She's a perfect mix of great healing and decent dps. Perfect for my love of healing as well as my dps tendencies.

I would like to play Ana most of my competitive games but a lot of people are against her. For one thing most Ana's aren't that great right now. Even some of the pros still practice-she's still sorta new and nobody's become a killing machine with her in the pro scene. She's pretty much my main other than Mercy. Healing sniper moms rock!

Saturday, September 17, 2016

Overwatch's Weekly Brawls Suck Bawls


Overwatch's latest weekly Brawl is "Tanks Alot", which limits players to only being able to play tank characters. The Weekly Brawls always have some sort of interesting rule-set to them. But only playing tanks? Come on! Give me a break Blizzard. Last week it was only playing games on Eichenwalde because it was the new map. Not terribly exciting but still it was cool to be able to only play that map because it was new and fresh. "Other brawls have done things like restrict players to Genji and Hanzo (because they’re brothers and stuff), make everyone play support, or only be women characters." (Kotaku) Each Brawl is centered around a simple theme and that's that. The big exception to this was Lucio ball-which was like a sport. Rocket League anyone?

The thing is that these Brawl's aren't very fun and get old after a match or two. How can this be fun for an entire week when its lame after one match? Brawls seem to make the game feel more limited. I don't even play Brawls anymore because it feels like "regular Overwatch except you can't do this, that, or the other etc".

"To date, my favorite Overwatch brawl ever is the first: “Arcade.” There were no restrictions on heroes. There were no restrictions at all. Instead, everybody got double health, light speed ultimate charge, and quicker ability cooldowns. It was completely wild. It was like the Tasmanian Devil from Looney Tunes locked in a life-and-death battle with a thousand fireworks. No matter where you looked, bonkers shit was filling the screen." (Kotaku)

I remember that first Arcade Brawl where it was like a game with power ups and stuff and special things listed above. Now that was a fun time! They should do something like that. There's so much they could do to make Brawls fun again. One thing they could do is add a bunch of different power ups that do a bunch of different things, give the game an Unreal Tournament feel.

A lot of Overwatch players have been throwing out ideas for Brawls.

































Blizzard does know that a lot of peeps aren't digging their Weekly Brawls. “This is fair feedback,” game director Jeff Kaplan wrote in a forum post today. “We feel the same way. We’re working on some new Brawl ideas now and hope to have some of them coming online this fall and early winter.”

Like I said I don't touch Brawls. Like ever. Until they stop being lame then I might start playing them again. Until then you'll see me in Competitive healing my team to victory. 

Friday, September 16, 2016

You Can Change Your Blizzard Battletag Now


You can now change your Blizzard Battletag now. For the paltry (or extravagant) sum of $10. Before you could change your Battletag only once and then it locked forever. At least now you can change it. Changing it only affects your name but things like your friends list remains the same.

Here we could have a discourse over how Blizzard is going crazy with all this cash crop bullshit. Like, why can't you just change it like every couple months if you want for free? That seems reasonable. But on the other side we have to consider that Blizzard is a business making money. Perhaps they've gone to the point of being more about the money than the games? Nah! That's poppycock! Blizzard is all about delivering a great online gaming experience to its playerbase for years to come. Some things cost money and unfortunately changing your name will cost you 10 bucks.

In the scheme of things this is pretty important news. For the longest time I went by names I didn't like because I was like 16 and picked some terrible names. Finally I settled on my sm4sh tournament tag, OgSpace. It took forever to get that changed and I can't even remember how I was able to get that changed but knowing now that I can keep changing it whenever I want to is pretty cool. 

Heroes of the Storm Patch Notes-September 13, 2016



This is one of the biggest patches Heroes of the Storm has ever received. It's great to see that Blizzard is still giving this game much deserved love. Here's all the stuff you need to know.

General

New Special Event: Xel’naga Artifact Hunt
Xel'naga artifacts have begun to appear all across the Nexus, and SCVs are being deployed to collect them. Terminate these interlopers with extreme prejudice and collect artifact pieces to earn some sweet new rewards!
  • Daily Quest:
    • Collect 12 Artifact Pieces during a single game.
    • Reward: 1 Day Stimpack
  • Event Quest:
    • Collect 150 Artifact Pieces before the Machines of War liftoff from the Nexus on October 18, 2016.
    • Reward: Xel’naga Artifact Portrait
  • SCVs and Artifact Pieces will have a 50% chance to spawn at the start of a game if any players on the team have not yet completed their Artifact Hunt Daily Quest. This task will be difficult to accomplish alone! Teammates must work together to eliminate the SCVs and reclaim the Artifact Pieces before the game begins.
Free Hero for All!
After downloading today’s patch and logging into Heroes of the Storm, all players will be able to add a new Hero to their collections for free!
  • On login, players will be able to pick one of the following three Heroes: Anub’arak, Thrall, or Tyrande.
    • If any of those Heroes are already owned, they will be replaced by Nazeebo, Sonya, or Uther on the selection screen.
    • Players who already own all six of these Heroes will automatically receive 4,000 Gold instead.
  • Learn more by reading our recent blog post.
New Battleground, More Often
We are currently working to resolve an issue affecting the reduced Battleground pool, and New Player Battleground Progression rules mentioned below. During this time all players can be matched for games on any of the Battlegrounds that were available in matchmaking queues prior to today's patch. Click here for more information.
  • Starting today, the pool of Battlegrounds available in all modes, except Custom Games, will be temporarily limited to the following:
    • Braxis Holdout
    • Towers of Doom
    • Cursed Hollow
    • Sky Temple
    • Infernal Shrines
    • Tomb of the Spider Queen
  • This has been done to increase the frequency with which players encounter the new Battleground, Braxis Holdout.
  • During this time, players can still select and play on any Battleground they wish using Custom Games.
  • A second group of 6 Battlegrounds will replace those listed above during the week of September 26, and the reduced Battleground pool will remain in effect until the Machines of War event concludes during the week of October 17.
New Player Battleground Progression
  • New Heroes of the Storm players who enter matchmaking modes will initially only be matched for games on certain Battlegrounds. As they complete more games, new players will unlock additional Battlegrounds as follows:
    • 0 games played: Players will only receive matches on Cursed Hollow. 
    • 5 games played: Players can now be matched on any of the Battlegrounds listed in the reduced pool mentioned above.  
     

    New Hero: Alarak

    Not all heroes are born of altruism. . . some, like Alarak, simply desire vengeance. As the new Highlord of the Tal’darim, Alarak leads his people to a destiny free of the corrupt influence of the fallen Xel’naga, Amon.
    Trait

    Sadism
    You deal 100% bonus Ability damage versus enemy Heroes.​

    Basic Abilities

    Discord Strike (Q)
    After a 0.5 second delay, deals damage to enemies in front of you and silences them for 1.5 seconds.

    Telekinesis (W)
    Push yourself and any enemies hit from the targeted point toward the targeted direction. Enemies pushed by Telekinesis also take light damage.

    Lightning Surge (E)
    Deals damage to an enemy and all enemies between you and the target. You are also Healed for 75% of the damage dealt to Heroes.

    Heroic Abilities

    Counter Strike (R)
    Become Protected and channel for 1 second. If you are attacked during this time, you will send a shockwave forward that damages enemies in its path.

    Deadly Charge (R)
    Channel and then charge in the targeted direction, dealing damage to all enemies in your path. Charge distance increases based on the amount of time spent channeling, up to 1.6 seconds.
    While channeling, movement commands will cancel Deadly Charge at no cost. Taking damage will interrupt channeling.

    New Battleground: Braxis Holdout

    The Dominion used the remote and hostile planet Braxis to conduct experiments on ways to turn the Zerg swarm into a weapon they could unleash on their enemies. Though the Dominion's main psi disrupter was destroyed, this space platform's beacons remain fully operational and ready to be used. Capture the beacons and watch what happens when a flood of weaponized Zerg ravages the battlefield.

    Capture the Beacons
    • Two Beacons will periodically spawn near the center of the Battleground. Capture both to fill your team’s Holding Cell with Zerg over time.
    Fill Holding Cells
    • The longer a team holds both Beacons, the stronger and more numerous their Zerg army will become. Once either team has completely filled their Holding Cell, both will open, unleashing Zerg forces into each lane.
    Unleash the Swarm
    • Each team must decide whether to defend against the opposing Zerg rush, or push with their own to lay siege to all who stand in the way of the Swarm. 

    Art

    Battlegrounds
    • Several Battlegrounds have received additional optimization to help improve performance.
    Heroes, Abilities, and Talents
    • The following Heroes have received new Talent icon tints to help players more easily differentiate between talents that modify the same Ability and exist on the same Talent tier:
      • Muradin
      • Tyrael
      • Zagara
    • The Butcher has received updated visual effects to coincide with his Talent rework.
    • Medivh’s Portals have received additional visual polish to make their presence on the battlefield more apparent to allies.
    • The Imposing Presence Talent has received updated visual effects to coincide with its new functionality.
    Bundles
    • New Bundles
      • Machines of War Bundle – Available starting September 13 until October 18, 2016.
      • Herald of N’zoth Alarak Bundle – Available until September 27, 2016.
    New Hero
    • Alarak has been added to the in-game Shop.
    Mounts
    • New Mounts
      • Ghost Speeder*
      • Obsidian Cyberwolf**
    • Returning Mounts
      • Demonic Hellsteed
      • Blackheart’s Doubloon
    • Removed Mounts
      • Cloud Serpent
      • Cyberwolf
    Skins
    • Herald of N’zoth Alarak
    • Master Alarak
    • Queen of Ghosts Kerrigan*
    • Raider Rexxar*
    • The Butcherlisk*
    * This item is exclusive to the Machines of War Bundle until it is officially released at a later date. Click here to view a full release schedule for Machines of War items.
    ** The Obsidian Cyberwolf Mount is exclusive to the Machines of War Bundle, but may return to the Nexus at a later date.


    Sound

    General
    • Even the music of Heroes of the Storm has been invaded by the Machines of War!
      • Enable music in the Sound Options menu (or press CTRL+M) to listen as the sounds of the Koprulu Sector clash with those of the Nexus.
    Heroes, Abilities, and Talents
    • All Heroes should now properly play voiceover lines when clicked repeatedly.
    • Medivh’s Portals have received some additional sound effect polish to make their presence on the battlefield more apparent to allies.
    • The Lost Vikings have received unique death notification sounds which should be a little less jarring for allies.
    • The Spell Shield and Imposing Presence talents have received updated sound effects to coincide with their new functionality.
     
     

    User Interface

    General
    • The Breaking News icon will no longer display in the menus when there is no breaking news to read.
    Color Blind Mode
    • The Health bar color for the player’s own hero has been changed from dark blue to yellow.
    • Neutral Mercenaries will now appear dark purple on portions of their models that use team colors. This should help players and observers better differentiate them from captured mercenaries.
    Daily Quests
    • Any Hero selected during Ranked or Unranked drafts will now count toward progression of any role or universe-specific Daily Quest.
      • This has been done so that players can still complete their Daily Quests while picking the best Heroes for their team composition, rather than Heroes who satisfy a quest requirement.
    • ​Daily Quests are now available to all players, beginning at account level 1.
    • New Daily Quest: Play 3 games
      • Reward: 300 Gold
      • This is the only Daily Quest that level 1 players can receive and will only be available until account level 11. After reaching level 11, it will be replaced by the Play 8 Games quest.
    MVP System and Commendations
    • Players can now show off their individual prowess on the field of battle via the MVP System and end of match commendations.
    • Five players will receive awards for their in-game performance and individual achievements at the end of every game played in any mode except Custom Games.
    • MVP and End of Match Awards
      • Each match will feature one MVP, or Most Valuable Player, and four other players will receive awards for specific in-game feats.
        • The MVP award is granted to the player who had the greatest overall impact on the match, which is determined by their performance across all in-game stats.
        • The remaining four match awards will be granted for a wide variety of achievements, such as top healing, longest killstreak, most Doubloons turned in on Blackheart’s Bay, and so on.
        • End of match awards, including MVP, can be granted to players on either team, regardless of victory or defeat.
    • Commendations
      • Once the awards have been given out, all ten players can then commend the award recipients to show appreciation for their in-game accomplishments.
        • Players who receive many commendations at the end of a match will also be rewarded with a little extra fanfare.
      • Award-specific icons will also appear on the end of game stats screen next to the name of each player who received an end of match award.
    • Click here to read our recent blog post on the End of Match Awards System.
    Hero Select
    • Hero Search
      • Searching for a Hero during Draft Mode or Hero Select will now sort the results first by the Hero whose name most closely matches the player’s search terms.
        • For example: Searching for “Diablo” will now show Diablo as the first result, followed by all other Heroes from the Diablo Universe.
    • Hero Sorting
      • New sorting buttons have been added to Hero Select and Draft Mode, and can be found next to the search field:
        • Toggle Favorites: Heroes who have been marked as favorites in the player profile will be sorted to the top of the Hero list.
        • A-Z: Sort Heroes alphabetically
        • XP: Sort Heroes by level
    Ranked Play
    • Grand Master League
      • The maximum number of Hero League Grandmaster players has been reduced from 500 to 200. The Team League maximum remains at 100 players.
    • Promotion and Demotion Matches
      • Players will no longer receive a flat 250 ranked point adjustment after winning a promotion match or losing a demotion match. Instead, these matches will now award or remove the same amount of points as a normal ranked game.
      • Upon earning enough ranked points to reach a promotion match, any points earned beyond the 1,000 point division cap will now be stored and applied at the end of the promotion match.
        • Winning a promotion match will now award any excess points that were stored prior to that match in addition to the normal ranked points earned for the win.
        • Losing a promotion match will subtract the normal ranked points for a loss minus the number of excess ranked points that had been stored prior to the promotion match.
        • Demotion matches do not store lost ranked points, and losing a demotion match will only cause the player to lose the normal amount of ranked points.
         
       

      Design and Gameplay

      Mounts
    • Movement Speed reduced from 40 to 30%
    Regeneration Globes
    • Time before Globes despawn reduced from 8 to 6 seconds
     

    Battlegrounds

    Mercenaries
    • Timing Changes
      • Previously all Mercenary camps spawned at 120 seconds. The following adjustments have been made to spawn times:
        • 90 seconds: Sappers, Doubloon Pirates
        • 120 seconds: Siege Giants (unchanged), Impalers (unchanged)
        • 150 seconds: Knights, Fallen Shaman
        • 180 seconds: Grave Golem (unchanged)
        • 300 seconds: Headless Horseman (unchanged)
    • Captured Mercenaries will no longer grant Experience when killed.
    Developer Comments:  We started playtesting with staggered Mercenary Camp spawn times, and quickly began to realize that it added more strategic depth to the game, and coincided with some of our Battleground events. We have been happy with the changes overall, and are listening to any feedback you may have!
    Try Mode
    • The following features have been added to Try-Me Mode:
      • Boss Camp
      • Ability to change the enemy hero
      • Ability to change the game speed
    Towers of Doom
    • Headless Horseman
      • Attack damage increased from 145 to 158
    Battlefield of Eternity and Infernal Shrines
    • Khazra Impaler
      • Captured Impaler attack damage increased from 40 to 46
         Return to Top

    Talents

    Imposing Presence (Active)
    • New functionality:
      • Heroes that attack you have their Attack Speed slowed by 20% for 2.5 seconds
      • Activate to Slow the Attack Speed of nearby Heroes and Summons by 50% and Slow their Movement Speed by 20% for 2.5 seconds
    Developer Comments:  We did not like the power of the Attack Speed slow for Imposing Presence given how little counter-play there is. We’ve decided to move some power out of the passive portion of the Talent and give it a new activated effect in order to create some bigger moments for players who choose to take it.
    Spell Shield (Passive)
    • Added functionality:
      • Spell Shield can now be toggled on or off to allow for better control of which Abilities you want to mitigate
































    Support

    Brightwing


    Talents
    • Level 1
      • New Talent: Pixie Charm (Active)
        • Each time Soothing Mist heals an allied Hero, excluding yourself, gain a stack of Bribe. Use 20 stacks to Bribe a Mercenary, instantly defeating them. Does not work on Bosses. Maximum of 80 stacks.
      • Bribe (Active)
        • Replaced by Pixie Charm
    Developer Comments:  See Falstad’s comment for Bribe changes.
         Return

    Kharazim


    Talents
    • Level 13
      • Relentless (Passive)
        • Removed
      • New Talent: Sixth Sense (Passive)
        • Stuns and Roots against Kharazim grant 50% damage reduction from Basic Attacks for 4 seconds.
    Developer Comments:  See Greymane’s comment for Relentless changes.
         Return

    Li Li


    Talents
    • Level 16
      • Shake it Off (Passive)
        • New functionality:
          • Stuns and Roots against Li Li grant Resistant, reducing all damage taken by 25 for 3 seconds. Cannot occur more than once every 10 seconds.
    Developer Comments:  See Greymane’s comment for Relentless changes.
         Return

    Lt. Morales


    Abilities
    • Displacement Grenade (E)
      • Displacement Grenade no longer explodes on contact and passes through everything. After a 0.0625 second delay, players can now re-activate the Grenade causing it to explode on command, damaging and displacing enemies. Displacement Grenade automatically explodes if it reaches max range.
    Talents
    • Level 4
      • Upgraded Ballistics (Passive)
        • Removed
    Developer Comments:  We have been looking for ways to add gameplay to our Supports, and believe that Lt. Morales’s Displacement Grenade is a place where we could give her more control. We’re hoping that this gives players an opportunity to make bigger plays by having more control of where they want the enemy hero to move with the Grenade’s knockback
         Return

    Malfurion


    Talents
    • Level 16
      • Hindering Moonfire (Passive)
        • Now only slows Heroic units
         Return

    Rehgar


    Abilities
    • Ghost Wolf (Trait)
      • Movement Speed reduced from 30% to 20%
    Talents
    • Level 1
      • Wolf Run (Talent)
        • Movement Speed reduced from 40 to 30% while in Ghost Wolf
    Developer Comments:  Alongside the adjustments to Mount speed, we’re also reducing the Movement Speed bonus offered by Rehgar’s Ghost Wolf Trait.
         Return

    Warrior

    Anub'arak


    Abilities
    • Burrow Charge (E)
      • Anub'arak is no longer Invulnerable when Burrow Charging, and is now only Unstoppable
    Developer Comments:  When looking at Burrow Charge, we liked that this Ability provided an immense amount of mobility and allowed Anub’arak to dive the back line, but we didn’t like that he had an Invulnerability on a 16 second CD. Essentially, Anub’arak could hold this to completely nullify a Pyroblast or any huge damage source, which is not intended. By changing this to Unstoppable, we still allow Anub’arak to be very slippery and get out of bad situations quickly.
         Return

    Cho


    Talents
    • Level 13
      • Surge of Stamina (Q)
        • New functionality:
          • Using Surging Fist grants Resistant, reducing all damage taken by 25% for 3 seconds.  Reduces the cooldown of Surging Fist by 4 seconds if it hits an enemy Hero.
    Developer Comments:  See Greymane’s comment for Relentless changes.
         Return

    Diablo


    Talents
    • Level 7
      • Devastating Charge (Q)
        • New functionality:
          • Shadow Charge grants Resistant, reducing all damage taken by 25% for 4 seconds.
    Developer Comments:  See Greymane’s comment for Relentless changes.
         Return

    E.T.C.


    Talents
    • Level 7
      • Just Keep Rockin’ (E)
        • Removed
    Developer Comments:  See Greymane’s comment for Relentless changes.
         Return

    Johanna


    Abilities
    • Condemn (W)
      • Added functionality:
        • Now deals 200% increased damage to Minions and Mercenaries
    Talents
    • Level 1
      • Knight Takes Pawn (W)
        • Removed
    Developer Comments:  As our heroes develop over time, we often find niches for their roles that are only available via Talents. While we love that our Talents augment our Heroes in interesting ways, we are wary when a Hero is picked specifically for a role that they are given via a Talent. We did a pass on our current roster and found a couple of these cases in Johanna and Muradin. We like how Johanna is seen as a warrior with good wave clear, and how Muradin is seen as an anti- auto-attacker. We’ve decided to make these features part of their base kits, and will be keeping an eye on others in the future.
         Return

    Muradin


    Abilities
    • Thunder Clap (W)
      • Added functionality:
        • Now also slows enemy Attack Speed by 25% for 2.5 seconds
    Talents
    • Level 1
      • Reverberation (W)
        • Moved to Level 4
        • New functionality:
          • Increase Thunder Clap’s Attack Speed slow to 50% and increase the duration of Thunder Clap from 2.5 to 3 seconds
    • Level 4
      • Third Wind (Trait)
        • Moved to Level 1
      • Thunder Burn (W)
        • Now also applies the 25% Attack Speed slow with the second activation of Thunder Clap.
    Developer Comments:  See Johanna’s comment.
         Return

    Stitches


    Talents
    • Level 7
      • Relentless (Passive)
        • Removed
    • Level 13
      • New Talent: Flea Bag (Passive)
        • Whenever Stitches is Stunned or Rooted, reduce basic ability cooldowns by 3 seconds.
    Developer Comments:  See Greymane’s comment for Relentless changes.
         Return

    Bug Fixes

    General
    • Corrected a number of typos and tooltip errors across several aspects of the game.
    • Repeatedly changing Region and Language settings to and from Chinese will no longer limit region selection to China on the login screen.
    • Fixed an issue that was preventing a small number of players from rejoining games.
    Art
    • Core: Fixed a bug in which Shield impact effects on the Core were not displaying when struck by some Abilities.
    • Keep: Flags will no longer appear detached from a Keep’s model when it is heavily damaged.
    • Artanis: Activating Twin Blades just as Hearthstone completes channeling will no longer cause Artanis to stand while Mounted.
    • Rehgar: The Totemic Projection Talent now uses the correct icon tint.
    Battlegrounds
    • Tomb of the Spider Queen: Medivh will now properly fly over the Spider Queen’s Altars while in Raven form, rather than path around them.
    • Towers of Doom: Sappers can sometimes stop attacking their targets and start following enemy Heroes.
    • Try Mode: Brightwing can now properly Phase Shift to the Healing Dummy.
    • Try Mode: Helping Hand is no longer removed from Stitches’ Ability bar after clicking Reset Talents.
    • Try Mode: Repeatedly casting Stitches’ Gorge on the Target Dummy will no longer prevent it from leashing back to its spawn location.
    Heroes, Abilities, and Talents
    • Fixed several bugs in which splash damage from Basic Attacks could still deal damage while the attacking player was Blind or the target was Evading.
    • Heroes can no longer push captured Mercenaries by walking into them.
    • Fixed an issue that could cause Tyrael, Uther, and Gall players to incorrectly receive AFK Warnings due to the combination of their post-death effects and lengthy death timers at later levels.
    • Abathur: Monstrosity can no longer push Minions or captured Mercenaries by walking into them.
    • Anub'arak: Beetle damage listed in the Scarab Host Trait tooltip will now update correctly when Anub’arak levels up.
    • Auriel: Sacred Sweep’s increased range, gained by learning the Majestic Span Talent, will now correctly benefit from the Righteous Assault Talent.
    • Chromie: Temporal Loop’s clock graphic will no longer disappear if the target becomes polymorphed.
    • Dehaka: Isolation’s parasite will no longer visually persist until death on a target that was simultaneously hit by Isolation and Chromie’s Time Trap.
    • Diablo: Overpower’s target will no longer be stunned for the Ability’s full duration if Diablo is interrupted by a knockback at the same time Overpower is cast.
    • Diablo: Apocalypse will now correctly target enemies trapped by Anub’arak’s Cocoon.
    • E.T.C.: Rockstar’s Attack Speed bonus will now be properly applied when E.T.C. casts Stage Dive.
    • Gall: An icon has been added to the buff bar for the Dark Descent Talent, and the icon’s tooltip will track Runic Blast damage bonuses earned via Hero Takedowns.
    • Gul'dan: Learning the Health Funnel Talent and using Drain Life to kill a Hero with a post-death effect, such as Uther, will now properly reduce Drain Life’s cooldown.
    • Johanna: Condemn will now be correctly interrupted when Johanna becomes Polymorphed.
    • Kerrigan: Using the Overdrive Talent will no longer remove the Energizing Grasp Talent’s Mana cost reduction for Primal Grasp.
    • MULE: Will now properly acquire a new repair target if the Structure it is actively repairing is destroyed.
    • Murky: The camera will no longer automatically snap to Murky’s Egg location if he is killed with camera follow enabled.
    • Nazeebo: Zombie Wall will no longer attack Murky’s Pufferfish.
    • Li Li: The Shake it Off Talent will no longer reduce the duration of the Garden Terror's Queen's Curse Ability.
    • Lunara: Fixed a rare issue in which casting Leaping Strike toward terrain could cause Lunara to run back to her original location after landing.
    • Lunara: Will no longer receive the “Stuck” notification when a Wisp is stuck by Tracer’s Pulse Bomb.
    • Rexxar: Misha’s Basic Attack target can now correctly be switched by right-clicking as long as she did not already have an order to Focus on a particular target.
    • Rexxar: Misha can now push Minions and allied Mercenaries, but will not push enemy or uncaptured Mercenaries.
    • Uther: The tooltip for the Gathering Radiance Talent will now properly indicate the amount of bonus Healing and Damage earned after multiple nearby Allies are hit by Holy Radiance.
    • Sgt. Hammer: Basic Attack range indicators should now appear consistent while Sgt. Hammer is in both Tank and Siege Modes.
    • Stitches: Vile Gas applied by a Retchling after learning the Restorative Fumes and Indigestion Talents will now properly Heal Stitches, rather than the Retchling.
    • Tychus:  Attack commands should no longer automatically switch targets after using Run and Gun.
    • Xul: Skeletal Warriors will no longer attack Murky's Pufferfish if it is in their path.
    • Zagara: After learning Medusa Blades, Zagara will now deal the correct amount of damage to her secondary Basic Attack targets.
    • Zeratul: Void Prison will no longer cancel Rehgar’s Feral Lunge or Olaf's Charge as long as the target of either Ability is still in range when Void Prison ends.
    User Interface
    • Color Blind Mode: Fixed an issue which caused damage and Heal over time effects in Hero Health bars to display in red and green while Color Blind Mode was enabled.
    • Death Recap: Zagara’s Healing received from the Hydralisk Transfusion Talent will now be correctly displayed in her Death Recap.
    • Draft Mode: Fixed an issue that could cause the draft interface to become unresponsive if the player’s game client was minimized while entering draft mode.
    • Replays: Pausing a replay prior to opening the Talent Panel (TAB) will no longer prevent Quest Talent progress from displaying.
     
     My goodness! Quite the update. This might just change everything. I feel like it already has and I haven't even played Alarak or the new Battleground yet. The most noticeable thing is all the tweaks to the heroes. Some of their abilities are slightly different or perhaps even a lot different. The biggest thing I noticed is that you have to hit E to detonate Lt. Morales' knockback grenade. Took me a second to realize that. Before it would just hit stuff and blow up on its own. I also noticed the mount speed nerf to one of my favorite characters Rehgar. It's okay. He's still awesome. It's just he's less fast. It's very noticeable as soon as you play him.

    Another thing that stands out is the new end game screen. You get to vote for players on your team or the enemy team that got awards like MVP, most killstreak, most damage, etc. It's basically just like Overwatch's system. Kind of funny how they added that. It does make the game feel more like a community I suppose so kudos to Blizzard for doing that.
     
    I haven't gotten to play the new Battleground because when I played my matches today I just never got placed in it. However, I did get to see an enemy Alarak player in action. He wasn't that good and got rekt super hard by me and my team but I see good things from this new hero. He seems like he's going to be a very strong dps character-at least for now. One player described him as near Li-Ming launch damage level. That sounds very promising. 
     
    I'll be playing more of the game and let you know about all this stuff as I experience it. I'm at 14,000 gold so I should be able to get Alarak by tomorrow-quests and stimpacks pending.  
     

New Year, New Me, [Not Really]

Hello Universe ,  How is it going out there in the free world ? It's a new year, happy 2024! It's time for all those happy go lucky...