Following on from a big Unreal Engine presentation at GDC 2017, Epic Games have announced the release date for their new VR editor for Unreal 4. It has been created to allow developers to design worlds for VR using a headset and the full creation tool set of Unreal 4.

Epic Games technical director Mike Fricker stated that the new VR editor will allow designers to create worlds with a proper sense of scale, before then being able to place themselves into that newly-created world to check that everything looks correct, effectively putting them in the place of their players. If something’s not right for them, it probably won’t be for the player either.

Like all VR at the moment though, special considerations were given to making sure the user wouldn’t become motion sick too easily if at all. Lauren Ridge, who is a tools programmer at Epic Games said that you “can’t tip yourself over” while in the editor and they’ve restricted the rotation of the actual person in the VR to only one direction to stop you getting dizzy. Ridge has said that no one at Epic ever got ill while using the VR editor, but they have put the safeguards in place just in case others are more prone to motion sickness.

What is interesting is that Epic partnered with Pixar for Unreal Engine 4, making both the standard engine as well as the VR editor compatible with the studio’s Universal Scene Description graphics pipeline. Which means that the VR editor could see use outside of gaming for Pixar’s future film efforts.

The VR editor will launch April 17th.

In preparation for both the Year of the Mammoth beginning at the end of March and the next expansion of Journey to Un’Goro, Hearthstone has today had a patch to set up the foundation for both, as well as addressing some bug fixes and a few balance issues to Small Time Buccaneer and Spirit Claws. A number of tweaks are also in now, fitting some of the changes proposed during a Developer Q and A a few weeks back.

Patch notes are as follows:

• This update begins preparations for the Year of the Mammoth celebration that kicks off at the end of March.
• Pre-purchase for Journey to Un’Goro, Hearthstone’s latest expansion, is now available! You can pre-purchase 50 card packs and get the Fossil card back for $49.99 USD.

• Ranked Play
  • Upon achieving certain milestones in Ranked Play, it will no longer be possible to lose ranks beyond those milestones for that season. The milestones are Rank 20, 15, 10, 5, and Legend.

• Arena
  • Creating decks for the Arena will now feature Standard cards only. Arena runs that were started prior to the patch will still include Wild cards.
  • Rares, Epics, and Legendaries will be offered more frequently during Arena deckbuilding.
  • Spells will now show up with a higher frequency.
  • Neutral Basic / Classic cards will appear less often.
  • If you own a Golden version of a card, the first copy you draft will be Golden. If you own multiple Golden copies of a card, all copies you draft will be Golden.

• Balance Updates
  • Small-time Buccaneer’s health reduced from 2 to 1.
  • The mana cost of Spirit Claws increased from 1 to 2.

• General
  • Added some memory optimizations.
  • Improved matchmaking for new players.
  • We are testing an update to the account creation process for mobile players. This will minimize the overhead associated with creating a new Battle.net account, and will be available in limited release.
  • Maximum in-game music volume has been capped in order to retain the best audio quality.
  • [Android] We made some optimizations to Android distribution, allowing for a smaller install size and smoother patching in the future.

• Bug Fixes
  • Resolved inconsistencies in the way that Small Time Buccaneer’s Attack interacts with effects such as those generated by Humility, Keeper of Uldaman, and Crazed Alchemist.
  • Resolved an issue where a Kazakus potion spell cards could appear blank when copied by a minion or spell effect.
  • Knuckles will now correctly use its effect when under the effects of Misdirection.
  • Addressed an issue with the interaction of Wrath’s card draw timing in conjunction with Daring Reporter.
  • Snipe will now correctly trigger after Potion of Polymorph.
  • Djinni of Zephyrs will now correctly copy spells buffed by spell damage.
  • Bouncing Blade will now correctly continue bouncing after clearing a Divine Shield.
  • Resolved an issue where seasonal reward cards could take a while to show up in the Collection Manager.
  • Searching the Collection Manager with a class name will now correctly display Tri-Class cards.
  • Resolved issues that could slow or stop payment authentication when using the in-game Shop.
  • Fixed many minor visual issues and some card text inconsistencies.