With a game the size of World of Warcraft it’s no surprise that Blizzard run in to problems from time to time. From malicious DDOS attacks to plain under estimating how many people that are going to try and play the new patch. The latter is what happened recently and is the cause of much mixed feedback from WoW players. Some are having a great time and rate the content highly but I’ve also heard complaints of bugs and long queues to get into servers.

While the queues aren’t as bad there is an official announcement on the WoW forums addressing the recent issues and confirming fives days extra time to subscriptions on the American, Oceana, and European servers that was active as of Friday, 14th November.

To help address this, we’ve expanded the new instancing tech we used to improve queues on Saturday and we’re continuing the process of applying that to raise the capacity of all realms again. This will result in approximately double the prelaunch capacity on each realm, which should greatly reduce queue times for most realms if not eliminate queues altogether.

In recognition of the difficulties so many of you ran into when trying to play over the first few days, we’re adding five days’ worth of extra time to every subscription in the Americas, Oceania, and Europe that was active as of Friday, November 14. Things are already in a much better place than they were going into the weekend, so I hope you’ll now be able to focus on having a ton of fun with this expansion.

I also hope you’ll accept my apology and keep your faith in us. The support voiced by many of you as we worked through the challenges was immensely appreciated. We’re extremely grateful to be part of such a passionate community. We love World of Warcraft, and we’re very proud of this expansion, so stumbling out of the gates like this was very disappointing for all of us.

Rock Hippo Games has announced that the closed beta of A.V.A for South American players will begin on November 20, 2014 at 14:00BRST. A.V.A is a fast paced first person shooter where players can join either the EU or NRF forces to complete their mission by eliminating the opposing team. First Person Shooter fans will be able to emerge themselves into the realistic combat setting within A.V.A and play three different classes including Assault, Support, and Sniper. Players will have a large variety of both PVE and PVP game modes and maps at their disposal.

Players will have extensive appearance and stats customization options within A.V.A for both character and weapons. There are five different weapon types available, three of which are class specific while the other two are available to all classes. All classes carry a primary, secondary, and grenade type weapons. If you want to get in on the action, you can sign up for closed beta here.

“We are excited to announce that A.V.A will launch in Latin American, I believe A.V.A. will allow Portuguese and Spanish speaking players to battle together.” said Woody Feng, President of Rock Hippo Games.

You may not have heard, but after winning a recent lawsuit relating to Hearthstone, Blizzard are yet again cracking the legal whip. This time the game in question is Tai Chi Panda, by Snail games. It’s a mobile game and Blizzard are trying to make a point over the similarity between the Tai Chi panda and their own panda in the World of Warcraft. Apparently they have issues with other parts of the game but the panda is causing the most controversy. People are asking why don’t Blizzard get sued for bring out a kung-fu using panda after the movie Kung-Fu Panda? Or why do Blizzard have the rights to pandas’ wearing chinese martial arts equipment? Feel free to leave a comment and let us know what you think!

The images below are pointing out where each point of Tai Chi Panda’s design comes from, it’s clearer if you can read Chinese but ti’s still quite obvious with the pictures. And the official Tai chi Panda gameplay video.

Source.

Industry City Patrol is the name of the new mode in Marvel Heroes and it’s already running.

Madness has erupted in Industry City! Industry City Patrol is recruiting Heroes level 12 and higher to join the continually running fight against evil. Located on the industrial waterfront section of Brooklyn, New York City, Industry City Patrol has some exciting features:

• New bosses including the Mindless Titan, Batroc the Leaper, and Spider-Man clones!
• Additional bosses including Mister Hyde, Kirigi, Kingpin, Lizard, Kraven, Grim Reaper, and more
• Improved spawning technology to reduce lag
• Brand new artifacts!
• New medallions!
• New uniques found nowhere else, including unique rings!
• Additional powers for Rogue to steal and mobs for Emma Frost to mind control

Source.

From today you will be able to play the all new looking Summoner’s Rift map by playing the team builder. It’s still in beta but initial impressions are good. It’s been an update to bring the visual style of the map up to the modern visuals of many of the new champs. You could see inclings of the new changes with Azir’s passive turret building, astute gamers will notice the similarities between the hp bar and that of the new turrets.

Riot have also released two new summoner icons which you get by winning a match on each side of the game. One for blue side, and one for red side.

All the neutral minions and each team’s minions have great upgrades to their looks, and personally I really like the new summoning animation at the start of a game. It makes it feel more like you are dropping into an arena of battle.

Blizzard have just announced their next big thing, all the rumours can be put to rest! Overwatch has been confirmed as the next big project from Blizzard. It’s a fantastic looking hybrid of the FPS and MOBO genres. Let me tell you, I can’t wait to give it a try!

You can sign up for the beta on the official site. You can find much more information about the game on the official page and you can enjoy the video previews below! The beta has been confirmed for 2015 so get signed up and prepare yourself for some exciting 6v6 team based combat. The characters look great and pace of the game seems great too. See for yourself.

Overwatch Gameplay Trailer:

Overwatch Cinematic Trailer:

This undersea bastion, known as Bathysmal Rise, is perhaps the most challenging new dungeon in Northern Arun. This dungeon is home to new Big-Ass Monsters and enemies who employ a variety of new abilities and tactics to test teams of the most seasoned players.

Bathysmal Rise is the last surviving refuge of the once-mighty giants, who conquered the world but incurred the wrath of the gods. No one knows exactly why the giants built Bathysmal Rise, or what purpose it served—only that it is still watched over by the strange beasts and sentinels the giants put in place centuries ago.

Find out more about the official expansion  and the four new dungeons on the official page.

Riot have announced the next champion that will join the League of Legends. Kalista is their name and from their abilities it looks like they will be a very strong duo laner when you have good communication and timing.

As usual Riot have put a lot of effort into the production value of the champion reveal, so check out the official page for more information and videos of Kalisata’s abilities here.

Treacherously murdered, Kalista rose as a specter, twisted by the horrific power of the Shadow Isles. In death, she offers Runeterrans a proposition: surrender your soul to the Spear of Vengeance and she will exact retribution on your betrayers.

Chris Roberts’ team Cloud Imperium have recently revealed their FPS gameplay from Star Citizen at PAX Australia. If you missed the livestream they have been good enough to share the video on their official website. The whole video is nearly an hour long so I’ve included below a smaller video clip which shows a great standoff.

The footage below is of a space station attack. You get to see the combat from multiple points of view and we also get a sneak peak at some of the equipment. We get to see some of the weapons like guns and grenades but we also get to see deployable force fields in use to create cover.

Star Citizen is still a way off from its’ release date but we can really see where the $59 million+ is being put to use.

Blizzard have just confirmed that they have banned several thousand accounts that have been ascociatted with the use of bot programs. The banned accounts will reamin so untill 2015, so if you were a cheating scumbag you do still have the chance to play again. However, Blizzard have also confirmed that future bans will be permanent and without warning.

We’re committed to creating a fun and rewarding environment for our players, and we will continue to closely monitor activities within Hearthstone and take appropriate action against cheating in any form, as outlined in our Terms of Use. From this point on, accounts found to be cheating will be permanently closed without warning.

Find out more on the official website.