Activision Blizzard Earnings Call
Activision Blizzard has their quarterly earnings call today, with the report being inadvertently posted early.
- Activision Blizzard had 374 million Monthly Active Users in the quarter. This is down from 385 million last quarter.
- Blizzard had 38 million MAUs, down from 40 million last quarter.
- World of Warcraft over-performed versus the prior expansion at this point in time, with higher engagement sequentially and strong community participation with in-game purchases.
- Preorders for the upcoming expansion, Battle for Azeroth, are ahead of plan.
- Overwatch continues to add new players, and engagement remains strong, with the most recent seasonal event, Retribution, having a higher participation rate than any prior event
- The Overwatch League launched its inaugural regular season in January and continues to have strong viewership globally, reaching millions each week, with the playoffs still to come this summer.
- Overwatch League has led to increased engagement for the franchise overall, with combined hours spent playing and watching Overwatch increasing sequentially.
Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Mage Tower Appearances
If that's true, then, given that you believe there's still plenty of time to get the Mage Tower appearances, how do you feel about the amount of time players have left to obtain the Prestige skins?
Prestige artifact appearances aren't going away and will still be obtainable.
The only appearances that will be no longer obtainable after Legion ends will be the Mage Tower appearances and the three other skins within that row, since you need the first appearance to unlock the other three, and the +15 appearance. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Protection Warrior Numerical Analysis
Disclaimer: this is sort of analysis is necessarily rough--beyond these basic estimates, talents and many other things will affect mitigation and overall tank performance in any given context.
Disclaimer 2: I didn't review your calculations or assumptions, but the approach seems reasonable.
Even based on your own conclusions, you're greatly downplaying the Warrior's mitigation advantage in your example. "Only 6.64%" is a very large difference when the Druid is only taking 33.57% of incoming damage in the first place. The Warrior (who's taking 26.93% of incoming damage) is taking 19.8% less damage than a Druid. 19.8% is a very large mitigation advantage--it amounts to a 25% increase in effective health, which is very close to the 29% higher health the Druid has in your example. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Blue Tweets
It's been a while since we caught up on Tweets, be sure to read the Prestige level merge info in the PvP section!
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Classes
Can we get some clarification on the inner workings of Bone Shield on BFA Beta? Stacks seem to drop much quicker in multi-target situations than on Live. Has the type of things that remove stacks been changed, or the internal CD reduced/removed?
In the Battle for Azeroth Beta, Bone Shield still has a 2-second internal cooldown on losing stacks. If you spot a bug, please try to give us as much detail as possible. Thank you!
Can you explain what's the interaction between Downpour and Deluge in Battle for Azeroth for Restoration Shamans? (If there is interaction, if not, it's like losing a talent?)
As of the next build of the Battle for Azeroth Beta, this should no longer be an issue, since Downpour no longer replaces Healing Rain. (WarcraftDevs)
PvP
If prestige is going account wide, does that mean artifacts appearances or color variations are unlocked in all characters once BfA begins?
Yes, if you unlock an appearance that requires an account-wide Prestige level, all of your characters will get that appearance. (WarcraftDevs)
In Battle for Azeroth, all of your Prestige levels are going to merge. So if you have three characters who reached Prestige 4 in Legion, your account will be set to Prestige 12 in Battle for Azeroth. (WarcraftDevs)
Professions
In BfA will we have to relearn crafts from previous expansions?
In Battle for Azeroth, any crafts you’ve learned in the past will still be there and not need to be re-learned, with the exception of First Aid. Tailoring and Alchemy crafts, bandages, and anti-venoms that used to be in First Aid will have to be re-learned. (WarcraftDevs)
PvE
Uldir only has 8 raid bosses? In the past we had NH, TOV and EN for Legion, TOES, HOF and MSV for MoP, TOTF, BOT and BWD for Cata, as you can see so far it's very concerning you'll be going down the WoD route with less raids.
Highmaul had 7 bosses; Nightmare had 7. Uldir has 8. Much of Nighthold was in data at Legion launch, but it didn't open until months later so it doesn't really offer a true parallel. I will say that we're pretty happy with the quantity of raid content that Legion offered. (WatcherDev)
"With the Azerite system, you're not going to see the big inflated numbers we had in Legion" -WatcherDev That's weird, I don't remember checking out MMO-Champ and seeing scientific notation.
You're looking at datamined internal tables out of context. The current plan is for you to be collecting 3-digit quantities of Artifact Power and working towards 4-digit and 5-digit goals pretty much all expansion long. (WatcherDev)
Testing shows “Vectis” raid test this week, but there is currently no such boss in journal, npcs, anywhere really. it doesn’t exist. Not even in todays build that got reverted. Is this a boss rename? If so, what boss?
Vectis is the boss formerly known as “Blood of G’huun”. Other references will be updated in a future build of the Battle for Azeroth Beta. (WarcraftDevs)
Island Expeditions
How bout the ai? They're kinda dumb and squishy. Mobs too, but that was expected. I want the ai to make me go " oh no they didnt!" instead of " they're dead."
On Normal, that's kind of expected, on H/M it should be scarier! (Muffinus)
And the much-promised account-wide unlock/level your alts on islands as well (and please let us know how it feels to level, the xp probably isn't great atm but we'll fix it). (Muffinus)
wait, WHAT?????
Do unlock quest at 115 on one character -> islands for all your 110-120 doods. (Muffinus)
Curious if you are discussing player behavior like we saw in Ashran where Alliance would control the road while Horde farmed the perimeter. Also I see the goal is to get 6000, what will the losing team get.
The overall amount of stuff is limited and doesn't respawn, so we haven't really seen this. You're forced to clash eventually! Losing team still gets Artifact Power based on how much they collected, we don't want it to feel really bad to lose. (Muffinus)
Pet Battles
Will scaled enemy pets have access to all their skills? Will there be an incentive to use max level pets for WQ's if it turns out to be easier to do the quests with level 1 teams?
They don't have all of their skills, but do have buffed stats, so it may be more difficult to fight them at low level (but worth the XP). (Muffinus)
Misc
Is Moonrest Shore still in Val'sharah? I think it might have been there at launch and replaced with Verdant Cliffs (falcosaur area), but there doesn't seem to be any information anywhere about it.
Moonrest Shore was an early name for Moonrest. The thinking was that you could see the shore from there. But you can't, really, because the trees block your view of the shore. Which is fine. They're lovely trees. Very restful. (WarcraftDevs)
Maybe I am one of the very few players that is a sucker for stats, but you still haven't added Seething Shore to the PvP/Battleground statistics list. At least the win/loss ratio would be nice, maybe even captured Azerite.
This was a bug that we're working to fix in Battle for Azeroth.Thank you. (WarcraftDevs)
Warcraft 3 - Patch 1.29.2
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Hail Warchiefs, Liches, Commanders, and Keepers,
1.29.2 is ready for work.
Specific Changes & Improvements
- Ladder reset
Bug Fixes
- Standard/Quick Play maps no longer disappear when patching from 1.28.5 enGB to 1.29.1 enUS
- Plugged the leak allowing Frozen balance into the Chaos bucket
- The team game you attempted to join has been found; Arranged Teams working as intended
- Polish language characters render as Polish again
- The text cursor reprises its role as conjurer of text
- Map download progress % over Battle.net has returned
- /ping command calls forth your need for speed
- Floating text offset corrected in widescreen
- Fog and visibility modifiers affect player 13+
- Visual building upgrades appear for players 13+
- Unit glow for player 12 is muck colored again
- Quest logs update via scrolling
- (2)FloodPlains_LV – Removed water clipping in several locations
- (8)Ferelas_LV – Reduced aggro range for expansion creeps
- (8)Twilight Ruins_LV – Level 1 permanent items replaced with tomes in Goblin Laboratories
- Minimap dead zones in World Editor resurrected
- Moving special effects using the new natives updates their internal position
- BlzSetUnitAbilityManaCost no longer affects all units with the chosen ability
- SetUnitAbilityCooldown no longer affects all units with the chosen ability
- BlzSetUnitName updates GetUnitName
- Max clan members and players in channels can actually reach 255…
Known Issues
- Joining a custom game on Mac will result in a crash
- SetItemName affects all items of a chosen type
- Holding left mouse button causes keyboard events to not be registered
- Cursor does not match the mouse position when resolution is taller than wider
- In 24 player games, AI buildings may become stuck in construction
- Automated tournament map pool updates will be available Soon™
Dark Legacy Comics #630
DLC #630 has been released.
Continue reading...