To say that the launch of Warlords of Draenor did not go as Blizzard had planned is putting it lightly. The return of more players than had been estimated led to server overcrowding, hour-long queues and problems were further irritated by a DDOS attack that led to players being kicked out of servers only to be sent back to the end of the same long queues. Although it’s still not quite perfect, the situation is now better thanks to higher server caps and implementation of phasing technology to create more than one instance of Draenor at a time.

Now Executive Producer J. Allen Brack is hoping to go some way to making up for the launch’s problems by offering an extra five days worth of subscriptions for everyone who had one that was active as of November 14th.

“I know how much everyone was looking forward to this expansion… all the comments I’ve seen indicate that this is one of our best yet… But the quality of the content does not excuse the subpar launch experience we delivered… The support voiced by many of you as we worked through the challenges was immensely appreciated”

There were still some server issues even as recently as earlier today, DDOSing still going on and having an effect even on some of Blizzard’s other games such as Hearthstone. The worst however seems past.

In the lead-up to Goblins vs Gnomes, Hearthstone’s new expansion there are going to be a lot of cards revealed – they are adding 120 new ones after all. Because of this, I’m going to be doing a weekly article like this one to reveal all of the new cards that have been released in the past week to make it much easier for you to find the new card entries.

Now, here are the new cards that have been revealed:

  Shieldmaiden

Minion, 6 mana cost, 5 attack and 5 health. Battlecry gives your Hero 5 Armor.

  Jeeves

Minion, 4 mana cost, 1 attack and 4 health. At the end of each player’s turn allows them to draw until they have 3 cards in their hand.

  Foe Reaper 4000

Legendary minion, 8 mana cost, 6 attack and 9 health. Will also damage Minions next to the one they attack.

  Ancestor’s Call

Spell, 4 mana cost. Puts a random minion from each player’s hand onto the battlefield.

Evolve’s gameplay mechanic for a 5 player game sets 4 of those players against the lone 1, with that 1 playing what is essentially the ‘boss’ monster. The Hunters are there to trap the Monster, the Monster needs to eat and evolve to better lay down some hurt onto the Hunters. There was an Alpha back at the start of the month for both Xbox and PC and Turtle Beach have been looking over the records to see how matches went.

Out of all the matches played it seems that the Hunter team won more often with there being around a 200,000 victory difference between a Hunter win and a Monster win. To be exact, it’s a 753,414 Hunter victories opposed to 574,079 Monster victories, which can feel a bit disconcerting when you realise that the Hunters are essentially harassing the poor creature on its native habitat.

Other stats reveal that the Assault class was the most popular class to play as, just beating out playing as the Monster itself. Simple as the Assault is to use, I’m a little bit surprised that the appeal of smashing your friends to a pulp and toasting them with fiery breath didn’t result in the monster being most popular.

Matches lasted all kinds of lengths of time, and would be down to how well the Monster player was able to evade the Hunter and how well the Hunters worked together as a team. The longest match on record was around 40 minutes long and I can only imagine how much chasing occurred during it.

Evolve will be released in the new year, around the February mark.

Ao Kuang was a popular god in his original incarnation in Smite. A while back, HiRez removed him and replaced him with Kukulkan, giving the new serpent god Ao’s old move-set. However, Ao Kuang is back and better than ever. Playable right now on the Smite Public Test Servers, his kit and appearance have recieved a complete overhaul. Lets take a look at the changes.

Ao Kuang: Dragon-God of the Sea

Passive

Ao Kuang’s sword can hold up to 3 Energy Charges, and regenerates charges while out of combat. Each time Ao Kuang casts an ability, an energy charge will be consumed if available, increasing the damage of the ability. If Ao Kuang is out of mana, he will use Energy Charges to cast abilities instead.

• Charge Damage Increase: 5%
• Charge Regneration: 5s

1st Ability: Water Illusion

Ao Kuang teleports forward into stealth, leaving behind a watery form of himself. He remains in stealth for 5s or until he attacks or takes damage. Ao Kuang may activate this ability again to detonate the watery form, dealing damage to nearby enemies.

•  Damage: 90/140/190/240/290 (+70% of your magical power)
• Radius: 20
• Cost: 70 mana
• Range: 30
• Cooldown: 15 seconds

2nd Ability: Dragon Call

Ao Kuang summons 6 dragons to his side. For every successful basic attack Ao Kuang makes, a dragon will dive to the target dealing additional damage. This ability ends after all dragons are used, or after 10s. Ao Kuang may activate this ability again to send forward any remaining dragons in a ranged attack. The dragons damage and slow the first enemy they hit.

• Attack Damage: 40/60/80/100/120 (+30% of your magical power)
• Ranged Damage: 20/30/40/50/60 (+15% of your magical power) per remaining Dragon
• Slow: 30%, for 1s +0.25s per remaining Dragon
• Range: 55
• Cost: 60/65/70/75/80 mana
• Cooldown: 15/14/13/12/11 seconds

3rd Ability: Wild Storm

Ao Kuang unleashes a storm of lightning from his sword, damaging all enemies in front of him. This hit is considered a basic attack, and will activate item effects.

• Damage: 90/140/190/240/290 (+50% of your magical power)
• Range: 30
• Cooldown: 5 seconds
• Cost: 60/65/70/75/80 mana

Ultimate: King of the Eastern Seas

Ao Kuang selects a single target in melee range and grabs them, dealing damage and knocking them up into the air. If the target is under a health threshold, Ao Kuang will instead reveal his true form, becoming a Dragon and executing them. After transforming Ao Kuang remains in the air, and may then pick a new location to land, dealing damage to enemies within range 20, and fully recharging his Sword.

• Damage: 90/140/190/240/290 (+50% of your magical power)
• Execute Threshold: 23/26/29/32/35%
•  Landing Damage: 100/150/200/250/300 (+50% of your magical power)
• Landing Range: 200
•  Cooldown: 90 seconds
•  Cost: 90/100/110/120/130 mana

If you’re curious as to what the new Ao Kuang looks like in action, I’ve embedded a video of him in action below.

City-builders are in luck. Developers Focus Home are planning to make and release a new version of the Cities XL game they announced today; aptly titled Cities XXL.

As this is just the first announcement details are not really available, but they have said they plan to make use of multi-core CPUs to make sure that a smooth FPS is always available for the player no matter how large or complicated a city might get to be. It’s also yet to be seen what they plan to offer those who purchased Cities XL Platinum released back in February (such as a discount) or indeed if anything will be offered at all.

The announcement was made over Cities XL’s Facebook page:

“We’re thrilled to announced the return of the world’s largest city builder, filled to the brim with new features allowing you to expand the scope of the game further than any Cities XL game before it. Introducing: Cities XXL!

 

“Create and manage enormous cities on the latest version of the ‘Cities’ engine with multi-core support. With a smooth FPS no matter the size and complexity, there are no longer any limits on the richness and diversity of your sprawling metropolis. New features, buildings, and other details will be revealed over the coming weeks.”