biteho.com

A group of Minecraft modders known as the Floo Network has recreated basically the entirety of the Harry Potter universe, and the results are quite magical. Filled with plenty of places to explore and puzzles and quests to fulfill, players can visit some of the most recognizable Harry Potter locations like Hogwarts, Diagon Alley, and much more.

For what is essentially a Minecraft mod, the whole project looks surprisingly fleshed out. Aside from merely exploring, players will be able to fight enemies, trade in Diagon Alley, scavenge for loot and supplies, and even explore parts of London.

[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”albumSlug=igns-top-25-modern-pc-games&captions=true”]

Players will even be able to visit the Quidditch Field and play a game or two with friends. Further, a lot of the locations in the Minecraft Harry Potter mod are interactive, like the Grand Staircase, where all the stairs are continuously moving. Additionally, there are a couple of puzzle rooms where players will have to use their wands to shoot at a target or cast a spell to move objects around in order to solve the mystery.

Around four years ago, the group released a similar mod that was far less interactive and expansive, and a few years ago decided to relaunch the project with new ambitions. “This current project has been in the works for around two years, and has become gradually more ambitious along the way,” one project lead, who goes by the username Wednesday Frog, told IGN. ” If you count the old map as part of the project it’s been closer to seven years.”

Wednesday Frog told us that their inspirations were drawn from their love for Harry Potter and Minecraft, and they’ve even visited some of the filming locations to make their digital world as accurate as possible. “Hogwarts itself was very complicated, said Wednesday Frog. He continued, “Since the castle layout changes a lot throughout the film series, it isn’t very consistent.”

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2014/02/13/minecraft-pocket-edition-review”]

However, despite some complicated builds, the team says that their love for Harry Potter, Minecraft, and their fans have encouraged them to keep going. “The inspiration to continue was the support and kind words from all the Harry Potter fans who enjoyed what we’d made a long time ago, and the knowledge that we could expand and improve the whole thing a lot with the experience we had gained over the course of the first version of the map.”

At launch, players will also be able to visit places like Privet Drive, The Great Hall, the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, the Green House, the Chamber of Secrets, Hagrid’s Hut, and much more. Floo Network has not announced an official release date for the Harry Potter mod, but told us that they are aiming to release it to the public by the end of January.

In the meantime, players can play as Baby Yoda in Minecraft thanks to the work of a dedicated fan. Further, there have been rumors that the Vatican may be getting its own Minecraft servers, in order to launch a friendlier place to play.

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Andrew Smith is a freelance contributor with IGN. Follow him on Twitter @_andrewtsmith.

CBS All Access’ Star Trek: Picard has been renewed for a second season, before the first season even premieres on January 23.

Julie McNamara, executive vice president of original content for CBS All Access, made the announcement on Sunday as part of a Television Critics Association presentation.

“We’re thrilled to announce plans for a second season before the series’ debut, and we are confident that ‘Star Trek’ fans and new viewers alike will be captured by the stellar cast and creative team’s meticulously crafted story when it premieres on Jan. 23,” McNamara said in a statement.

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/01/12/star-trek-the-picard-shows-timeline-explained”]

Reports of a season 2 being in development were all but confirmed back in December, thanks to Deadline. Those early reports indicated that season 2 would be 10 episodes long, but CBS has yet to confirm that much.

Terry Matalas, writer on 12 Monkeys, Nikita, and two episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise, is set to join as executive producer on the series.

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/12/14/picard-viewing-guide-the-star-trek-to-watch-before-the-show”]

Star Trek: Picard will follow the continuing adventures of the former captain of the USS Enterprise, Jean-Luc Picard, as played by the iconic Sir Patrick Stewart, 20 years after the events of Star Trek: The Next Generation. He’ll be joined by a cast of new (and plenty of returning) faces, including Jonathan Frakes’ Riker, Jeri Ryan’s Seven of Nine, Brent Spiner’s Data, Marina Sirtis’ Deanna Troi, and others.

IGN spoke with Sir Patrick Stewart about Star Trek: Picard at Comic Con, where he revealed the name of his canine companion.

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/07/20/a-look-at-the-world-of-star-trek-picard”]

If you want to know more about Star Trek: Picard before the show premieres later this month, check out our rundown of the Star Trek: Picard timeline and how it lines up with every other series and movie. Seven of Nine actor Jeri Ryan also shared how her character has resonated with people with autism.

You can check out our Star Trek: Picard hub page for even more previews and news, or check out our review of CBS All Access to see if it’s worth subscribing.

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Joseph Knoop is a writer/producer/red shirt for IGN.

When I think of the games and franchises that define Blizzard Entertainment as a development studio, the name that stands tallest amongst a formidable line-up of giants is Warcraft – Blizzard’s high-fantasy universe full of memorable characters and moments, epic battles, and lore that spans thousands of years.

In many ways the story of Warcraft is also the story of Blizzard, and the evolution of the accessible, fun, and cinematic approach it brings to many of its creations. It’s a story that takes us from a small studio looking to create something new and original to a larger and more experienced team delving into a broader online world. In the 25 years since Warcraft first hit retail shelves as a new strategy game, and in the 15 years since World of Warcraft created a community of millions, this franchise has evolved and grown, as has its popularity.

To celebrate the anniversary of Warcraft, the games and its history, I sat down with several key Blizzard devs to discuss Warcraft’s journey.

Warcraft: Orcs & Humans (1994)

“I was actually at 3DO at the time, a company I helped found, and I had gone to Electronics Boutique to look at some new games that I could play,” John Hight, Executive Producer on World of Warcraft recalls. “And I see this game called Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. I picked it up and was completely enthralled, I played through the campaign and tried to convince anybody that would listen to me to go out and buy it. Partly so we could play together. It caused me to shift my career direction. After 3DO I went to work for Westwood Studios where eventually I worked on Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2. Warcraft was my first introduction to real-time strategy, and I loved it.”

By 1994 Blizzard Entertainment had already developed a few titles: licensed products like The Death and Return of Superman for the 16-bit Super Nintendo in addition to original efforts like The Lost Vikings. Under the guise of Silicon & Synapse, the studio was made up of a small team of passionate developers that, when not working on a project, could be found discussing what games they were playing at length.

The Lost Vikings, a strategy platformer of sorts where players were put in charge of a colourful group of Nordic warriors who had to work together to reach a goal, began as a riff on the popular hit Lemmings. Warcraft, which would go on to define almost a decade of real-time strategy excellence for Blizzard, began in a similarly unexpected way.

“At the time it wasn’t actually going to be Warcraft: Orcs & Humans the strategy game,” Technical Director at Blizzard Bob Fitch tells me. “We were playing games like Monkey Island, and point-and-clicks were really fun, so the next thing was going to be a graphic adventure game.” And that adventure game was set to star the Lost Vikings.

As a Blizzard veteran, Bob has been working on the underlying tech that has driven many of the company’s most iconic releases for decades. This flirtation with the graphic adventure genre wouldn’t last though, thanks mostly to the release of Westwood Studios’ Dune II – a game that many cite as the original real-time strategy or RTS game. Slowly but surely the team became fixated on this new way to experience interactive strategy, so the decision was made to rework the engine and to create something in this space.

“We were thinking that the obvious answer was to take the Vikings, shrink them down to be really small, and then have the player direct them where they wanted them to go,” Bob recalls, noting that the initial tests were simple scenarios that were very different to the puzzles found in The Lost Vikings. Looking to Dune II, the addition of opponents, the ability to attack, and PvP entered the picture. But when it came down to creating abilities or different types of Vikings, the team hit a wall.

“We realised that just telling our Vikings where to go and attack wasn’t as much fun as playing Dune II,” Bob continues, confirming that coming up with Viking powers was a struggle. “The next thing you know, artists were drawing pictures of orcs and goblins and elves and saying that if we weren’t coming up with interesting ideas for what Vikings could do, this might be the answer.”[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=%22D%26D%20and%20Tolkien%20were%20all%20very%20traditional%20medieval-styled%20characters%20and%20places.%20We%20pushed%20our%20fantasy%20world%20into%20the%20realm%20of%20superhero%20comics%2C%20blockbuster%20movies%2C%20and%20heavy%20metal%20music.%22%20-%20Samwise%20Didier”]

“We all grew up playing Dungeons & Dragons, and reading Tolkien, so we all knew what an elf looked like, or what a paladin was,” Senior Art Director for Blizzard Entertainment, Samwise Didier, recalls. “Artistically, we really wanted to make our creations stand out. D&D and Tolkien were all very traditional medieval-styled characters and places. We pushed our fantasy world into the realm of superhero comics, blockbuster movies, and heavy metal music. Everything we created was ramped up. Anything ‘Level 1’ needed to look like it was ‘Level 5’. We didn’t go to ‘11’, we went to ‘111’!”

It was a defining moment for the studio. Although it had already created an original property with The Lost Vikings, the Warcraft universe would soon become something much more. Once the decision was made to tackle fantasy elements the project quickly evolved, with new mechanics and features added over time. Even the chess-like nature of the RTS genre would take literal form. “We had actual chess pieces, that was the black pieces and the white pieces,” Bob explains. “It was the Orcs & Humans. On one side you got the footman, on the other side you had the grunts, and they were kind of equal, and each side had its pieces in a particular slot.”

[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”albumSlug=warcraft-orcs-humans-screenshots&captions=true”]

Warcraft: Orcs & Humans released in 1994 to both critical and commercial success. Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness followed shortly after in 1995 and saw the series, franchise, and real-time strategy really deliver on its potential.

Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness (1995)

“I was working on MechWarrior 2 at Activision and a colleague started playing Warcraft II,” Tim Morten, former Production Director on StarCraft II recalls. “I looked over his shoulder and it seemed like fun. There was a feature back then where with one disc you could have your friends play multiplayer with you. So, I got to join him in a multiplayer match and he immediately marched into my base and built towers. Of course, at this point I’m figuring out the tech tree. I hadn’t played an RTS so I had no idea how to counter that strategy and he couldn’t stop laughing at how my base was getting taken apart by these towers. That was my inspiration to learn how to get better at playing RTS games.”

“I think in a lot of ways we didn’t really feel like we were finished,” Bob Fitch tells me. The still relatively small team at Blizzard was ready to keep going the moment development wrapped on the original Warcraft. “We were finished in that it was the game we had set out to make, but there were things that got cut. Things like Naval battles. That and we just wanted to keep working on it. We had learned a lot about how to make an RTS, how they play, how to balance them, how to make artificial intelligence for them – and we knew we could do an even better job the second time around.”[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=%22We%20had%20learned%20a%20lot%20about%20how%20to%20make%20an%20RTS%2C%20how%20they%20play%2C%20how%20to%20balance%20them%2C%20how%20to%20make%20artificial%20intelligence%20for%20them%20%E2%80%93%20and%20we%20knew%20we%20could%20do%20an%20even%20better%20job%20the%20second%20time%20around.%E2%80%9D%20-%20Bob%20Fitch”]

“Orcs & Humans was our first step into Azeroth,” Samwise adds. “And we basically just stuck to orcs and humans, with a little flavour added through water elementals and demons. With Warcraft II, we added elves and dwarves, as well as trolls, ogres and dragons. We were building our fantasy world with the standard tropes but were making our own versions of them – the Blizzard versions that we all know and love.”

“We realised that it would be more interesting if the sides were more diverse,” Bob continues. “And so, you can see that in Warcraft II, which had so much more variety in the way that each side played and what all the units were. And that evolution was then reflected in StarCraft where there’s three unique races.”

[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”albumSlug=warcraft-ii-tides-of-darkness-screenshots&captions=true”]

In creating Warcraft II, the team at Blizzard also worked to evolve the tools that it had, with the goal being to create something so powerful that players would have the option to create anything they wanted. In Orcs & Humans, many of the maps and campaign missions were laid out using text files. This evolved into a proper editor for the completion of Warcraft II and later, its expansion, Beyond The Dark Portal.

“The campaigns went through evolutions where originally they were simplistic,” Bob explains. “Over time they grew to have more story and sub-quests, as we got better. And then that segues into another evolution, which was the editor. We began building the editors to have more and more functionality until our goal with Warcraft II and eventually StarCraft II was to create engines and editors so powerful that end users could create whatever they wanted.”

Jumping forward to the release of Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos in 2002, this goal was met when user-created versions of genres we now know of as Tower Defence and MOBAs began to appear for the first time – all within the Warcraft universe. For the team at Blizzard it was a gradual evolution of the tools it had been honing internally finally making their way out into the world. And in a way getting to see the end results felt like mission complete.

In expanding the scope of Warcraft II, however, the characters and lore of the universe began to form alongside the art and strategy gameplay. Compelling characters began to emerge, and events took on more cinematic qualities. This storytelling would eventually take the series and franchise in new and exciting directions.

Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos (2002)

“When I started at Blizzard, it was 1996,” Chris Sigaty, former Executive Producer and Senior Vice President at Blizzard recalls. “I was in college at USC at the time, and I knew a friend who knew somebody at Blizzard, and they invited me to come in and help test Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal. I absolutely loved Tides of Darkness and strategy gaming. And immediately there was this feeling of having found my people. I was a total Dungeons & Dragons nerd, science fiction and fantasy reader growing up and I never imagined there was a career in it. But once I arrived, I knew this was exactly what I wanted to do.”

Before Blizzard would return to Warcraft though there was – as the team lovingly puts it – many distractions along the way. From the dark action-RPG Diablo series to the science fiction space opera StarCraft. The latter took the RTS genre to its strategic limit by introducing three varied, asymmetrical, and involved races that engaged in grand battles involving large armies. It was StarCraft’s popularity and success in this space, bolstered by the earliest examples of competitive esports, that would inform the development of Warcraft III. That and the renewed focus on character and story.

“Warcraft III was where everything came together,” Samwise tells me. “The story, art, movies, hell – even the art in the manual, really pushed our game to 111. We came up with the franchise’s biggest characters in Warcraft III: Jaina, Illidan, Thrall and Arthas, and dozens more. Almost every character in World of Warcraft was based and modelled after something we created in Warcraft III and when World of Warcraft came out, it only got better.”

[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=%22We%20came%20up%20with%20the%20franchise%E2%80%99s%20biggest%20characters%20in%20Warcraft%20III%3A%20Jaina%2C%20Illidan%2C%20Thrall%20and%20Arthas%2C%20and%20dozens%20more.%22%20-%20Samwise%20Didier”]

“It was originally a hero-controlled game,” Chris says, talking about the earliest moments developing Warcraft III. “You could only control your hero, and the units you had around it were selected only if you had vision of them. It was a very different game. It wasn’t working out, but it gave this differentiator for Warcraft III that we wanted, which was something that played very differently than the units-swarming you got from StarCraft. Hero-centric, level up, have items, consume them, go into different buildings and then focus on a few smaller armies. We called it RPS (Role Playing Strategy).”

This new direction saw an explosion of lore and gameplay come together, from the introduction of 16 or so playable races, to the simplification of base building to incorporate more story and role-playing character progression. Warcraft III would ultimately see this vision move back towards more traditional RTS mechanics, with the playable races cut down to eight and then four, but its focus on hero abilities and a central character remained.

“It was a complete revamp at that point,” Chris confirms. “We basically went back to the drawing board, but the element of having this hero character was something the team was very fond of. That hero-centric play felt like the big innovation for us.”

“We were still working on StarCraft at that time,” Rob McNaughton, Lead Artist on StarCraft II recalls. “We really sat down and thought about how we are going to evolve the RTS. We wanted to take it to the next level. First, we made the decision to go with 3D graphics, which meant that Warcraft III became one of our most technically challenging games to make during those years. But we also quickly realised that it was going to be more than just a continuation of the RTSs we’ve made. With the heroes and levelling, the game could become more accessible to a lot more people. So, from our point of view internally, the Warcraft franchise went a little softer where StarCraft went hard esports.”

“By Warcraft III, we added dozens more races and places to Azeroth,” Samwise adds, “including some of our most recognisable races in the game; the night elves, tauren, and murlocs. Working with 3D models and environments at this time allowed us to really push the look of the game and add to the immersion with in-game cutscenes. All the while, our pre-rendered cinematics were improving with each game and by World of Warcraft, both gameplay art and cinematic art hit a whole new level.”

[ignvideo url=”https://au.ign.com/videos/2018/11/02/warcraft-3-reforged-cinematic-trailer-blizzcon-2018″]

Warcraft 3 returns!

World of Warcraft (2004)

“I was working at BioWare in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada on a game called Jade Empire,” Kevin Martins, Lead Designer on World of Warcraft recalls. “With World of Warcraft we had heard the buzz about it. We played a demo at E3, but as we only played about 20 minutes of it, we didn’t think much of the game. I’m an orc and I kill scorpions. I hope there’s more to it. Oh boy, was there more to it! When it was released it quickly took over the team at BioWare, where it single-handedly delayed Jade Empire because we were all playing it. I had my troll and female mage, my first characters and they’re still around to this day.”

Taken at face value, World of Warcraft presented a new direction not only for the franchise but Blizzard as a whole. But much like the origins of Warcraft, which was born from playing and loving a new type of game with the release of Dune II, World of Warcraft’s inception followed a similar trajectory.[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=%22When%20it%20was%20released%20it%20quickly%20took%20over%20the%20team%20at%20BioWare%2C%20where%20it%20single-handedly%20delayed%20Jade%20Empire%20because%20we%20were%20all%20playing%20it.%22%20-%20Kevin%20Martins”]

“The team was playing EverQuest and Ultima Online and loving them,” Chris recalls. “So, immediately we began asking – what if. What if we brought our slant to it? There was another game in development at the time and it was not an MMO in any way. And we didn’t want to do that anymore. The big moment came when Allen Adham walked in and said, ‘I know we’ve been doing this thing, but we all really want to go and do this thing.’ And everybody was like, ‘Let’s do it.’ And that new thing became World of Warcraft.”

Having thousands of people log into a single server, with the goal being to create a seamless world without the zone-loading seen in EverQuest, was there from the beginning. This alone proved to be a huge technical challenge and undertaking for the team. “It’s hard to wrap your head around it,” Chris continues. “We started building this engine that needs to do all these things, and it was new territory. Blizzard had been through this many times where we’ll ask, ‘What do we know about that?’, and then realise we don’t know anything about it.”

The sheer scope of World of Warcraft’s, well, world was larger than anything Blizzard had developed to date, and it required both new technology and a different approach to design. But it wasn’t long before the first prototype build was put together and the team could see the Warcraft universe face-to-face for the first time.

“I remember being completely impressed by seeing the world at scale,” Chris tells me. “With the Warcraft RTS games, even though they showed some size differences between units, it’s not truly a scale. It does whatever it needs to do for the gameplay, so an ogre might be bigger than a footman as far as the number of pixels on the screen is concerned, but it wasn’t an accurate scale.”[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=%22When%20you%20look%20at%20how%20big%20that%20initial%20world%20was%20and%20how%20ambitious%20it%20was%2C%20comparing%20it%20to%20all%20the%20MMORPGs%20that%20were%20released%20before%20that%20-%20I%20don’t%20think%20any%20of%20them%20came%20out%20with%20a%20world%20that%20huge.%22%20-%20John%20Hight”]

“When you see a treant in Warcraft III walking around, it’s big compared to your footman,” Chris continues. “But it’s not like when you walk around in World of Warcraft, look up, and see a treant. That was one of those moments where it was like holy crap that’s a treant! That’s how we knew we were on the right track, because it’s such an epic feeling. We knew Warcraft players were going to like this too.”

“Instead of viewing multiple characters from above, we had our first experience of looking up to see a sky and seeing just how terrifying some of our creatures and characters could be,” Samwise adds.

Although early builds would provide this new perspective, there were still many challenges facing the team. One was taking the art style seen in Warcraft III and translating that to a more traditional over the shoulder look. “Keeping the Warcraft style; we struggled with that for a while,” Samwise admits. “For some reason, with this new point of view, the art team had a tendency to go more realistic with the characters and environments. Our weapons and armour were more proportionate to normal-style weapons, and our colours were becoming dull and muted. Maybe it was the view we were working in.”

“At that time, most first-person style games were trying to be more realistic,” Samwise continues. “That is definitely not want we wanted. We wanted the immersion to feel realistic, but not kill the Warcraft art style that we all loved. We needed to get that superhero vibe back. We just applied our normal philosophy for creating art and tweaked it a bit to fit this new camera view. By pushing the proportions back to normal Warcraft levels, our characters became more dynamic and more heroic. We pushed the weapons and armour to be even bigger and bulkier, and juiced up our palette to keep our colours rich and vibrant. After that, we had the feel of Warcraft back in our art.”

“The game for me and I think for a lot of players, is that the world is the star first,” John Hight says. “There’s always something new and an interesting place to explore. When you look at how big that initial world was and how ambitious it was, comparing it to all the MMORPGs that were released before that – I don’t think any of them came out with a world that huge. And then each expansion added to the world with interesting storytelling and characters like Jaina or Sylvanas or Thrall. Characters that we’ve followed through many different stories over the years.”

“The moment to me that really stands out came on launch night,” Kaeo Milker, Production Director on Heroes of the Storm tells me. “We do launch events and we did one for WoW at Fry’s Electronics, which is this big warehouse electronics store. We’d done them before and usually a couple of hundred people show up, they’re all excited and they buy the game and we sign autographs and we all celebrate together. But that night when we arrived there was a line of people wrapped around and around this huge building multiple times. And then it went out into the parking lot and around the block. There were thousands of people there and it was the first moment where we realised that this was different. It felt like the beginning of everything, beyond all of our wildest expectations.”

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2018/08/09/25-changes-to-world-of-warcraft-since-it-launched-in-2004″]

A look back…

Warcraft: Legacy (2019)

It’s hard to overstate how the success of World of Warcraft not only impacted the industry but Blizzard as a studio. From a small team that created Warcraft: Orcs & Humans the studio would grow to measure in the hundreds, especially as work commenced on expansions for World of Warcraft. But behind this exponential rise in popularity and awareness, Warcraft has always remained the result of developers given the freedom to create. “We know what we like,” Bob summarises. “Sometimes that’s all it really takes, knowing what you like and a commitment to do it.”

“Warcraft came from passionate players creating the games they wanted to play,” Chris Sigaty confirms. “And it turns out that the people out there playing the games are basically brethren, people that feel the same way, and there’s this awesome camaraderie that comes out of that. You can feel that togetherness.”

“Friendships that people could make before ever meeting in real life, that’s always been a part of what the internet is,” Kevin Martins adds. “The power of relationship building was particularly strong in World of Warcraft and it’s a legacy that resonates to this day.”[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=%E2%80%9CThe%20power%20of%20relationship%20building%20was%20particularly%20strong%20in%20World%20of%20Warcraft%20and%20it%E2%80%99s%20a%20legacy%20that%20resonates%20to%20this%20day.%E2%80%9D%20-%20Kevin%20Martin”]

“We love seeing people create costumes and artwork based on Warcraft,” Samwise says. “I remember explaining to the artists when they joined the team what the ‘Warcraft’ art style was. At the time, it was really different, and sometimes polarising for people. Now, everyone walks into Blizzard knowing what the style is. I have hired people as artists specifically from seeing their fan art.”

“You know, we do want World of Warcraft to live for another 15 years or 50 years or even a hundred years,” John Hight tells me. “And in order to do that, it has to remain relevant to the community out there. We’re also developing for the next two, four, six, eight years. We plan many expansions ahead. What’s exciting is that people coming to work on the game or play Warcraft for the first time probably have no idea about the games that had influenced the designers of the originals.”

With the release of World of Warcraft: Classic, which recreated the launch period of the game to great success, and the upcoming release of the remastered Warcraft III: Reforged, this is a sentiment that rings especially true for Blizzard. Both projects have artists, designers, and engineers who grew up playing Warcraft – either in its original real-time strategy form or the phenomenon that is the massively-multiplayer World of Warcraft.

“When I think about how those things influenced each other, it wasn’t this path that we set out on, knowing we’re going to get to this place,” Chris concludes. “But World of Warcraft became the giant exclamation point for Warcraft in that it created communities of people. It broke down barriers with people simply having a great time adventuring together. That for me, I want to share that with more people, and I look forward to 25 more years where we can broaden that feeling and bring that sense of togetherness to an even larger group.”

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Kosta Andreadis is an Australian freelancer who also wrote IGN’s Diablo retrospective and StarCraft retrospective, as well as a look at the early days of Blizzard with its co-founder Allen Adham. Follow him on Twitter.

Borderlands 3 added a limited-time special event, Takedown at the Maliwan Blacksite, towards the end of 2019, but part of the event was delayed. In late December, Gearbox announced that a new version of the event that would scale depending on how many players you had in your party would release, making it easier for players who preferred to play alone to tackle it. This ended up being delayed, but a date for the scaled version of the event has now been set.

In a new post on the Borderlands website, it’s been announced that the scaled version of Takedown at the Maliwan Blacksite will be available from January 16 to January 30. It’ll be slightly easier now for players who are taking it on alone, meaning that if you can’t quite crack it right now, it’s worth trying during this period.

After January 30, the event will revert to its standard difficulty level, and will once again be tuned for four experienced vault hunters working together–which means that you’ll need to be extremely skilled to beat it alone.

Borderlands 3 also received its first piece of major DLC in late December, Moxxi’s Heist of the Handsome Jackpot. The game received an 8/10 in our review, and Jordan Ramée wrote that the game “best excels at continuing what the series has always done: deliver a humorous tall tale of misfits looting and shooting their way to heroism.”

As fires rage across the Australian countryside, you might be thinking “what can I do to help?” This is exactly what a group of streamers were thinking last week, as the Australian fires continued to make headlines around the world. Two streamers in particular, Loserfruit and Fasffy, wanted to do something for their home nation. So they decided to do a 24-hour Twitch stream for charity. While their initial goal was around $15K AUD, they ended up raising roughly 20 times that amount.

Australian Fire Relief Charities

Loserfruit first announced the charity stream on Twitter:

She decided to support three different charities: Red Cross Disaster Relief Australia, WIRES, and the New South Wales Rural Fire Service. Per her social media descriptions, the Australian Red Cross was chosen because “donating provides emergency assistance, recovery, and shelter for communities affected. Over 1300+ homes have been destroyed in the bushfires.” She chose WIRES because “donating helps rehabilitate injured animals and home stranded animals that have been affected by the bushfire. It’s been estimated that over half a billion animals have been killed in the NSW bushfires since September.” Lastly, she chose the NSW Rural Fire Service because “The majority of firefighters in Australia are volunteers. Donations to help provide more firefighting resources to combat the bushfires.”

Exceeding Their Initial Goal

Loserfruit began the stream on Sunday at 11am Sydney time (or Saturday at 4pm, depending on your time zone) on her Twitch channel. Loserfruit and fellow streamer Crayator kicked off the stream casually, assuming they were settling in for a quiet day of streaming some games and reading out donations from their community. They were very surprised to see some larger donations fly in right away, including a $500 donation from YouTuber Lazarbeam (who donated under the alias YeetManYeet.) 

The stream hit the ground running and never lost momentum. They hit $1,000 in four minutes, reaching their initial goal of $15,000 in 52 minutes. Over the next six hours, the stream raised $80,000. Their biggest donation during this time was from fellow Twitch streamer Dakotaz, who dropped in $14,000 and then another $7,000. Dakotaz tweeted out his support for Australia and his fond memories of WoW raids with Aussie players.

Ending at $300,000 AUD

When they hit $100,000 Loserfruit and co. realized that they needed some stretch goals. So they decided to add 12 more hours to the stream if they hit $200,000. They were able to hit that goal and extended to a 36-hour stream. Each streamer took breaks for sleeping and reading donations. They took turns playing Fortnite and Sims 4. Multiple guest streamers and YouTubers came over to help read donations including Muselk, Lazarbeam, Tannar, LivBevan, Brodie, Mully, GraceWatkins, Marcus, MrWoofless, BazzaGazza, and more.

Loserfruit and co. kept the stream going by taking donations for dares, for on-stream kisses, for game challenges, for shoeys (drinking beer from a shoe), for cosplaying, for decorating people while they were asleep, all kinds of fun shout-outs to supporters, and much more. The more fun moments on stream were tempered with serious moments where they watched videos of the fire damage, read statistics about the effects of the fire, including the devastation the fires have had on human life, homes, plant life, animals, and more.

I personally tuned in for multiple hours of the stream. I laughed when donators would ask everyone on screen to yell “Yeet,” I cried when they hit big and little goals, I threw in donations of my own, sometimes in my name, sometimes in funny names. Overall it was an incredible 36 hours. It was humbling to watch the world come together to support Australia. It was beautiful to watch so many one and two-dollar donations come in from people saying, “This is all I have, I wish I could donate more.” While the big donations made a huge impact, it was the accumulation of all the small donations that helped bring in the final total to $318,511 AUD (which is a little over $220K USD.) You can watch highlights of the charity stream on Loserfruit’s YouTube channel.

Loserfruit also shared this graphic on Twitter highlighting all of the top donations. The art piece was created by Fasffy:

#FightTheFires Campaign

I reached out to Grace Watkins, the co-founder of Click Management (the Australian company that manages Loserfruit and a few of the streamers/YouTubers mentioned above) for comment. Grace said that she is really proud. “The stream over the weekend really highlights the power of influencers and their ability to mobilize their audiences to make a real impact,” she said. “To see them use this power, and come together for good on a global scale, highlights youth leadership at its best.”

The success of Loserfruit’s charity stream has encouraged Click Management to launch the #FightTheFires campaign, which kicks off on January 14, 2020. They will attempt to raise $1 Million AUD for the Australian Red Cross, WIRES, and the NSW Rural Fire Service. You can read more about their #FightTheFires campaign or you can donate directly their cause at FighttheFires.com.

[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”albumSlug=celebrities-who-have-donated-to-the-australian-bushfires&captions=true”]

IGN is also raising funds for Red Cross Australia. So far dozens of celebrities have also donated to Australian charities, including Russell Crowe, Leonardo DiCaprio, Pink, and Thor himself, Chris Hemsworth.

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Lauren Gallaway is a Social Media Coordinator for IGN. Find her tweeting @LaurenGallaway and Twitch streaming @GlimpseEntertainment. #Yeet.

HBO has announced that Westworld will be returning for its eight-episode third season on Sunday, March 15, 2020 at 9pm ET/PT.

Alongside the date reveal, HBO released a new teaser that shows certain Divergence points in our history, beginning with the Hong Kong Protests and the “Impeachment of the 45th President of the United States.”

However, it also goes into the future and ends with an Unknown Divergence on February 27, 2058.

03.15.20 #Westworld pic.twitter.com/AVLWy5z1DW

— Westworld (@WestworldHBO) January 13, 2020

Season 3 will see Evan Rachel Wood’s Dolores, Jeffery Wright’s Bernard, and Tessa Thompson’s Hale in the real world following the events of the season 2 finale which aired in June of 2018.

Joining the above three and such others as Emmy-winner Thandie Newton, Ed Harris, and Luke Hemsworth will be Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul who appears to be a construction worker by day and criminal by night.

Other new cast members include A Black Lady Sketch Show’s Lena Waithe, Black Swan’s Vincent Cassel, We Are Who We Are’s Scott Mescudi, Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s Marshawn Lynch, The Newsroom’s John Gallagher Jr., Stumptown’s Michael Ealy, and Sons of Anarchy’s Tommy Flanagan.

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/07/21/how-leaving-westworld-changes-westworld-in-season-3-comic-con-2019″]

Westworld’s third season got a nearly three-minute trailer during San Diego Comic Con and we’ve broken down every part of it as well as what role we think Aaron Paul’s character will play.

Back in 2018, Westworld creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy discussed how this newest season will be a “radical shift” from what came before.

For more on Westworld, be sure to check out Westworld Awakening – a VR game where you play as a self aware host, a behind the scenes look at season 2, and why the Man in Black’s story is Westworld’s greatest tragedy.

[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”albumSlug=westworld-season-3-teaser-trailer-gallery&captions=true”]

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.