Seems that the makers of Elite: Dangerous have got their feedback to the point where they feel secure in setting a release date for the full version of the game: December 16th.

The game has been in beta for a few months now but it seems that Frontier are ready to put the game into dock at last. Speaking to Eurogamer David Braben expressed his excitement for the launch and for what the game could develop into later.

“No game is ever truly finished in the minds of those making it.” He said. “When you are close to a project for a long time, you tend to see the things that have annoyed you; those things you know could be improved upon; those things you are afraid might not work well for people that are not 100 per cent au fait with the game. …I think the best definition is that something is launch-ready when it is a great game.”

“We thank you for the opportunity and promise that we will continue to engage openly with the extended community of players as we further enhance the Elite: Dangerous experience, both up to and after the release.”

If you want to pick up the game before the beta ends, you can do for a slightly reduced price of £35 which is a discount of £4.99.

A few more cards were revealed to the public at Blizzcon, as well as some more details about some of the cards, how much of the expansion is to be made up of Mechs and an update to a previously seen card.

The majority of spell cards that relate to a part are now confirmed to be the Spare Part cards that some Mechs and other cards from the new expansion will work with. This includes all but one of the new cards below. It’s also been revealed that a third of the Goblins vs Gnomes set will be made up of Mech cards.

As for the new cards, they are below:

  Emergency Coolant

Spell, 1 mana cost. Freezes a chosen Minion.

  Finicky Cloakfield

Spell, 1 mana cost. Gives a frinedly Minion Stealth until your next turn.

  Ogre Warhaul

Weapon, 3 mana cost, 4 attack and 2 durability. Has a 50% chance to attack wrong enemy.

  Rusty Horn

Spell, 1 mana cost. Gives a chosen Minion Taunt.

   Time Rewinder

Spell, 1 mana cost. Return a friendly Minion to your hand.

The Clockwork Gnome has also seen an update to its text, turning its ability from a Battlecry to a Deathrattle:

The semi-finals and finals of the World Championships for Hearthstone were held today at Blizzcon 2014, to decide the first ever Hearthstone World Champion.

The games had started a few days previously with 16 competitors from around the globe being brought in to compete, with the best 8 going onto the quarter finals. They were placed in 4 groups with a European, American, Chinese and Taiwan/Korean player in each group like so:

Group A

• Firebat
• Kolento
• RenieHouR
• RunAndGun

Group B

• StrifeCro
• Greensheep
• Tom60229
• Lu Xiaobu

Group C

• DTwo
• Kaor
• Kranich
• Tiddler Celestial

Group D

• Tarei
• NumberGuy
• FrozenIce
• Qiruo

The deciding matches for each were played yesterday live at Blizzcon with most matches going smoothly although an electrical fault later in the day put paid to the broadcasting of some of the matches between RunandGun and Kolento for a good 40 minutes or more which led to both players being able to take a break between matches – and it showed for the match played when the livestream was resumed was between two players who were on top of their game mentally.

Eventually the final 8 were decided with Firebat being matched against Kaor, DTwo facing StrifeCro, Kranich against tournament favourite Kolento and Tiddler Celestial as the last Chinese player in the running being matched against Tarei.

Tiddler Celestial showed off some of his talked about skills against Tarei, winning their match up 3-1 and advancing to face off against Kranich who won an upset victory over favourite Kolento with a 3-2 match. Of that match-up T. Celestial once against came out on top winning a clean 3-0 sweep and advancing to the finals. Facing him there was Firebat who after winning his original quarter-final match up against Kaor with a 3-1 victory, faced DTwo who was a relative unknown and beating him in a close 3-2 match.

The finals saw both players facing off with a Druid Mirror, which ultimately Firebat came off as the victor of. Celestial then tried to beat Firebat’s deck with both a priest and a Handlock deck, but Firebat managed to emerge the victor ultimately with an impressive 3-0 sweep in the finals against a player who some thought could win it all.

As the winner of the World Championships and the first Hearthstone World Champion Firebat won $100,000 in prize money, with T. Celestial receiving $50,000 as runner-up, both Kranich and DTwo winning $15,000 each as semi-finallists, the other 4 quarter-finallists winning $7,500 each and the remaining 8 players each receiving $5,000 prize money. The broadcasts for the finals also set a new streaming record for a Hearthstone tournament, bringing in around 135,000 viewers at peak.

Congratulations to Firebat, the first Hearthstone World Champion!

We’ve heard so much about the BlizzCon movie over the past few years and now’s the time to hear even more. Get ready for the BlizzCon movie panel where we’ll hear about the upcoming movie right from the source.

We found out more about the characters and the movie itself from the panel and heres a run down of points they made about it:

– Everyone on staff is a huge Warcraft fan–they’ve played old school Warcraft, lost days of their lives to World of Warcraft.
– Warcraft has so many great characters and story arcs which made it hard to actually find a story of a suitable length for a movie.
– Original movie was very Alliance-biased, put Orcs in a more negative light. It was important this time for them to show both heroes and the conflict.
– Feels like a live action movie, the camera follows around from their perspective. The VFX for Orcs were hard to nail down, they needed them to be as genuine as humans. They used a lot of motion capture.
– They built sets, locations.
– They created a training session for people to become Orcs–actors had to learn how to become a 500lb creature, nuanced Orcs. Were they noble Orcs or aggressive ones?
– They didn’t want to do motion capture for Garona.
– One of the actors–Robert Kazinsky–actually had over 500 days /played, Death’s Demise, and more. He was in a top 100 World guild!
– Took months of training to learn motion capture. The actors also had to learn how to walk differently, get more in touch with their Orc side.

You can also back the side you love most!

Head over to FightForTheAlliance.com or FightForTheHorde.com to pick your side!

Also, we got a better look at the actors and some of the character in the film:

Warcraft is due out March 2016, and I can’t wait!

Following on from the announcement of the Hearthstone expansion Goblins vs. Gnomes, Blizzard have revealed the first of the 120 cards that will be added into the game with it. These are the first 33 new cards and they introduce a new Minion type: Mech.

  Whirling Blades

Spell, 1 mana cost. Gives a chosen Minion +1 attack.

   Velen’s Chosen

Spell, 3 mana cost. Gives a chosen Minion +2/+4 and Spell Damage +1.

  V-07-TR-0N

Legendary Mech Minion, 8 mana cost, 4 attack and 8 health. Has Charge and Mega-Windfury (4 attacks per turn).

  Upgraded Repair Bot

Mech Minion, 5 mana cost, 5 attack and 5 health. Battlecry gives friendly Mech +4 Health.

  Unstable Portal

Spell, 2 mana cost. Adds random Minion to hand, which will cost (3) less.

  Reversing Switch

Spell, 1 mana cost. Swaps a minion’s Attack and Health.

  Shrinkmeister

Minion, 2 mana cost, 3 attack and 2 health. Battlecry gives a minion -2 Attack this turn.

  Sneed’s Old Shredder

Legendary Mech Minion, 8 mana cost, 5 attack and 7 health. Deathrattle summons a random Legendary Minion.

  Spider Tank

Mech Minion, 3 mana cost, 3 attack and 4 health.

  Tinkertown Technician

Minion, 3 mana cost, 3 attack and 3 health. Battlecry that gives this Minion +1/+1 and puts a Spare Part card in your hand if you control a Mech Minion.

  Recombobulator

Minion, 2 mana cost, 3 attack and 2 health. Battlecry transforms random friendly Minion into another Minion with the same Cost.

  Piloted Sky Golem

Mech Minion, 6 mana cost, 6 attack and 4 health. Deathrattle summons a random 4-Cost Minion.

Piloted Shredder

Mech Minion, 4 mana cost, 4 attack and 3 health. Deathrattle summons a random 2-Cost Minion.

  Mimiron’s Head

Mech Minion, 5 mana cost, 4 attack and 5 health. If at the start of your turn you control 3 Mech Minions, destroy them all and summon V-07-TR-0N.

  Micro Machine

Mech Minion, 2 mana cost, 1 attack and 2 health. At the start of the turn, gains +1 Attack.

  Gnomish Experimenter

Minion, 3 mana cost, 3 attack and 2 health. Battlecry draws a card then then transforms it into a Chicken if it’s a Minion.

  Goblin Blastmage

Minion, 4 mana cost, 5 attack and 4 health. Battlecry splits 4 damage randomly among enemy Characters if you control a Mech Minion.

  Madder Bomber

Minion, 5 mana cost, 5 attack and 4 health. Battlecry splits 6 damage among all Characters.

Mechwarper

Mech Minion, 2 mana cost, 2 attack and 3 health. Mech Minions cost (1) less.

  Mekgineer Thermaplugg

Mech Minion, 9 mana cost, 9 attack and 7 health. Summons a Leper Gnome every time an enemy Minion dies.

  Flamecannon

Spell, 2 mana cost. Deals 4 damage to a random enemy Minion.

  Explosive Sheep

Mech Minion, 2 mana cost, 1 attack and 1 health. Deathrattle deals 2 damage to all minions.

  Enhance-o Mechano

Mech Minion, 4 mana cost, 3 attack and 2 health. Battlecry gives other minions either Windfury, Taunt or Divine Shield at random.

  Dr. Boom

Minion, 7 mana cost, 7 attack and 7 health. Battlecry summons two 1/1 Boom Bots.

  Cogmaster

Minion, 1 mana cost, 1 attack and 2 health. Has +2 Attack while you have a Mech Minion.

  Annoy-o-Tron

Mech Minion, 2 mana cost, 1 attack and 2 health. Taunt and Divine Shield.

  Bouncing Blade

Spell, 3 mana cost. Deals 1 damage to a random Minion and repeats until a Minion dies.

  Boom Bot

Mech Minion, 1 mana cost, 1 attack and 1 health. Deathrattle deals 1-4 damage to a random enemy.

  Bomb Lobber

Minion, 5 mana cost, 3 attack and 3 health. Battlecry deals 4 damage to a random enemy Minion.

  Clockwork Giant

Mech Minion, 12 mana cost, 8 attack and 8 health. Costs (1) less for each card in your opponent’s hand.

  Armor Plating

spell, 1 mana cost. Gives +1 Health to a chosen Minion.

  Blingtron 3000

Mech Minion, 5 mana cost, 3 attack and 4 health. Battlecry equips a random Weapon for each player.

  Clockwork Gnome

Mech Minion, 1 mana cost, 2 attack and 1 health. Battlecry puts a Spare Part card into your hand.