For the last month or so we’ve been watching as Blizzard first announced the name and theme of Hearthstone’s next big expansion – Whispers of the Old Gods, based around ancient eldritch tentacled horrors – and then slowly released the new cards we can expect to see burst forth from the new card packs. Now it seems that we have a release date too, thanks to a message that appears when attempting to purchase items that are rotating out of the new Standard format on the Battle.net store.

The new Standard is of course launching at the same time as Whispers of the Old Gods is, and will remove Naxxramas as well as its related cards and the GvG set from use in Standard although Wild will still allow for their use. The patch that comes out to let the new cards be used will also rebalance a lot of the Classic and Basic cards that have been around since the days of the Closed Beta tests. It really is going to be a day of massive changes.

Since April 26th is only 3 weeks away, expect to see card releases to speed up now and a massive one to happen just before release. Also prepare yourself for the release day itself; if it’s anything like the last few big releases the servers will probably fall over a few times before everything settles down.

Hey, at least it’s consistent enough for us to expect it to probably happen by this point.

In all the hype and fuss about the new VR headsets, it’s worth remembering that these are businesses wanting your money in the long run. The technology is new and the uptake needs to be good if VR is to persist as more than just a passing fad. Maybe that’s why in their FAQ Oculus say that all sales are “final” when talking about their refund policy.

The FAQ in question is located on the Oculus Home, the digital store for VR-ready titles for the Rift headset. The passage in question reads: “All software purchases from the Oculus Store are final, and unless required by local law, no refunds will be provided.”

Of course, places like Europe do have laws concerning the sale of digital goods in which the consumer gets a 14-day cooling off period to change their mind. In order to get anything for the Rift though, you’re required to waive your right to that 14 days, with the Oculus term of service, section 4.11 stating: “if you are located in the EU, you consent that the supply of the digital content may begin immediately following the completion of your purchase and you acknowledge that you therefore will lose any statutory rights you may have to withdraw and receive a refund.”

Oculus aren’t the only company to have you waive your rights to refunds in the terms of service you sign to use software or hardware of course, but most of the time you’re not going to be aware of it because… well, how many of us really read all of the terms before we sign?

As mentioned at the beginning of the article, VR might be the popular thing right now but it needs to sell in order to last. That’s probably one of the reasons behind this ‘final sales’ stance, and it does make sense from a purely business standpoint. So make sure you know you want the game before you buy it, there’s no going back once you have.

Did you know Amazon are about to launch a special PC gaming store on April 4th? Well, now you do. To celebrate they’re having a week of deals on components and gear for your rig. Yay!

The sale – the Amazon PC Gaming Week – will start at midnight BST or 16:00 PDT on April 4th and will run throughout the week, and to help you find what you’re looking for if you’re unsure Amazon have split their new store into sections so you can find that component to help your PC become VR-ready if that’s your goal or if you just want an upgrade find a new GPU.

Among the deals right now are half price HyperX 8GB RAM modules and around $150 off GTX 980 cards, and this is even before the sale has begun. Check back tomorrow to take in the deals in the sale and maybe give a piece of hardware a loving new home inside the case of your beloved gaming rig.

And just to make it easier to find, here’s the PC Gaming Week store page so you’re able to get right into your online shopping… or like me just stare at the pieces and make a note of what you’d love to acquire as your next upgrade.

Recently Blizzard have been sending out e-mails for the alpha testing of a new function that they’re hoping to implement into their Battle.net client at some point soon. What function? Voice chat.

Currently it’s at an invite-only stage, with Blizzard flagging certain accounts to join in the testing from Friday. At the moment it’s only in the “friends and family” stage, so expect to see bigger names in Youtube and Twitch taking part at some point soon.

“We’ve been hard at work creating an easier way to keep you connected with your guildies, teammates, and friends across all your favorite Blizzard games,” the e-mail states. “Although the feature is not available in all titles at the moment it is still possible to chat via the battle.net app while in a game, and Blizzard will be integrating voice chat “on a game by game basis as applicable.”

Of course at the moment the function is only available to those in the test, so if you get it but none of your friends do… well, you won’t be able to make use of it. There’s also the question of whether or not Blizzard can implement a voice chat good enough to lure people away from third-party apps such as Discord or Teamspeak – especially when such apps are well embedded into gaming culture by now.

We’ll keep you updated as trials continue.

VR hype is quite high right now, with at least 3 major competitors bringing out headsets soon. The group that arguably could be said to have started this off are even shipping off their pre-orders of the seconed generation of their headset. Or, at least they’d planned to be.

However from some e-mails that have been sent around to some people who pre-ordered the hardware it seems that Oculus have hit a problem – they underestimated the demand for the early adopters and have as a result run low on components needed to make the second Rift. Oops.

However, it’s not all bad. The Facebook-owned company have said that they’re planning to foot the handling and post costs as reparations for the delay. The e-mail says that this applies to “all orders placed through today” – although if that means it’d include anyone who ordered today is unknown. However, the fees for shipping and handling vary from between $50-$100 and so if that was standing in your way before… well, now could be your chance to own an Oculus Rift.

For those who have already pre-ordered, you can expect a revised shipping estimate by April 12th.