No doubt you guys have heard of Elder Scrolls Online at some point. Maybe you gave it a try back in the day and you’re probably sitting there wondering why is this game still so popular even to this day? 

If you haven’t tried it, maybe you’re sitting there thinking: what makes this game special? Why do people play this instead of playing World of WarCraft, Final Fantasy, Guild Wars or another MMO? Let’s go over the several points that differentiate ESO as an MMO and what makes the game just so good.

1. Rich Lore

If you’ve ever played an Elder Scrolls game, whether it’s Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, it doesn’t matter. You know that the Elder Scrolls Universe has a massive amount of lore going on for it. Each race, location, deity and hero has these extensive backstories behind them and Elder Scrolls Online is no different.

This game has a massive amount of rich and extensive lore. That’s been built up over the course of the game’s lifetime and of course this lore draws from the previous Elder Scrolls games, taking inspiration, but it also has introduced a ton of new stories, characters, and locations to the Elder Scrolls Universe.

One of the main reasons why people play this game so much is because it is so story driven because of the lore of Elder Scrolls Online. And if you’ve never given gaming lore a chance, Elder Scrolls is a great place to start, whether it’s this game or the single player games.

2. Level Scaling 

This is something that’s either you love it or you hate it when it comes to MMORPGs. But Elder Scrolls Online uses a level scaling system instead of a traditional MMO, where you level up a character, you ultimately out level zones and you sort of end up at the end of things in a select couple of zones that are the max level areas.

Elder Scrolls Online doesn’t do this. Instead, they have a level scaling system that allows their players to explore any part of the game world regardless of their level and it keeps every corner of the game relevant. This means that you can always find a challenge regardless of where you are in the game. 

If you’re a completionist or an explorer or whatever, this game is definitely right up your alley because it keeps things interesting with its scaling technology. Not everybody is a fan of horizontal progression, but in regard to the world, ESO does it very well.

3. Massive World

If you’ve ever played a previous Elder Scrolls title, you know that this is the kind of game that goes out of its way to be big and detailed and Elder Scrolls Online is no different.

The game world of ESO is massive, and players are free to explore it at their own pace. There are no level requirements for the zones either because of the scaling, so players can explore wherever they want. If you’re somebody that you want to quest and level up in Morrowind because that was your favorite game in the Elder Scrolls series, go over there and explore it or go to some of these regions where Bethesda hasn’t made a single player version of The Elder Scrolls at yet.

It’s completely up to you wherever you go. Across these zones, you’ll find everything from dragons attacking some areas to Oblivion Gates opening in others...... There're tons of stuff to find in each zone. Each zone has its own unique personality. It’s a world worth exploring. 

4. Player Choice 

Elder Scrolls is not a game where you just choose a class, level up the class and you’re stuck in that particular play style.

When it comes to ESO, you can play this game however you want. In Elder Scrolls Online, if you want to be an Argonian Thief, who wears heavy armor or who runs around healing people while also poisoning them with your daggers, you can do that. If you want to be a Necromancer who uses a bow and poisoned arrows, you can do that, too. 

You really can create whatever character you want in Elder Scrolls Online, which can lead to a little of a learning curve. But as you go through the game and as you gather points from leveling up or discovering Skyshards, you can spend them however you want in your skill trees that you unlock as you play the game. It makes the replayability of this game really good.

It also is cool because you’ll probably get to max before even exploring a fourth of all the zones in this game. So, going and checking out new zones and trying out new builds and new styles of playing your character. It’s awesome. 

5. Player Housing 

Player housing is a thing in Elder Scrolls Online and it is very expansive and it is very immersive. In this game, you can purchase tiny houses. You can purchase massive homes and with whatever your creativity desires. 

I’ve been in player homes that are completely vampire themed homes that are all like hunting with animal heads and stuff everywhere to even homes that are pretty much like entire castles that players have made within the giant landmass that you can purchase to customize your home on. It’s pretty wild how in-depth the player housing system is within ESO and I feel like I only scratched the surface of it despite my hundreds of hours in this game. 

6. No Subscription Required 

Unlike a lot of other MMOs, ESO does not require a monthly subscription, and the game is in no way paid to win.

When it comes to this game, if you play it, you can play it as much as you want or as little as you want without having to worry about any sort of recurring fee. 

The only thing really that you get from subscribing monthly to Elder Scrolls Online is you get points to spend in the Cosmetic Shop. You get an infinitely deep crafting bag, which some people would say it’s a little unfair. But it’s just a crafting bag. If you don’t care about crafting, it’s not a big deal. You also get access to all the content and all the expansions up to whatever the current expansion is whatever that might be. 

My first 100 hours in this game or so, I played completely for free with no subscription and I loved the game so much that I did ultimately subscribe to it. But it’s a hundred percent not necessary to progress in this game and to have a good time.

7. World PVP 

If you ever played Elder Scrolls Oblivion, you might remember Cyrodiil, a big landmass with the city in the center. 

In Elder Scrolls Online, the three factions are all fighting for control of that city. The massive scale world versus world combat in ESO, the moment that you try it, you’re going to get hooked to it: catapults and battering rams in all manner of fire and magic and fortresses...... It is wild that all of the this fortress besieging and stealing and whatever to claim the capital city right in the center of Cyrodiil and to claim an emperor for your faction.

Imagine a Classic World of WarCraft High Warlord or Grand Marshal. Because the emperor gets their own unique skill tree and abilities that they can use to dominate on the PVP Battlefield. It’s great. The world PVP in this game is so much fun.

8. Living World 

Something that I think a lot of RPG or immersive MMO gamer enthusiasts will enjoy about ESO is how interactable the world is and how immersive it can be.

In Elder Scrolls Online, if you’re walking along and you see a sword on the ground, you can pick it up. You see a potato, you can pick it. NPCs will lock the doors of their homes and you can break in. You can murder NPCs in this game. You can and get a bounty put on your head where guards will kill you on site unless you pay the fine.

If you are particular classes like a Necromancer and you were to use a Necromancer ability in the middle of town, people will freak out and try to attack you because you’re a freaking Necromancer. You’re raising the dead in the middle of the Town Square. 

So many people love this about ESO just how interactable the world is and how you can really play out whatever sort of fantasy that you want. Whether you’re a warrior, that’s going around and killing dragons to being some cutthroat rogue, who breaks into people’s homes and steals ESO Gold out of their treasure boxes, whoever you want to be, you can be that person.

Also Read: Elder Scrolls Online: The Unique Mechanics Of Arcanist Class Will Have A Big Impact On Game’s Resource System

9. Rewarding Exploration

Exploration is rewarded tremendously because Elder Scrolls Online is not a linear MMO. You can just kind of go wherever you want.

This is one of my favorite ways to play Elder Scrolls Online: just abandoning the quest that’s right in front of you and just wandering out into the world to see what you find.

As you explore, you’ll find more quests to take part in. You will find world bosses scattered throughout the world that you can fight. You can find delves, which are like these single player dungeons that you can go into. Fight the boss at the end and get an awesome piece of gear, possibly even a set piece of gear. There’s a ton of sets in Elder Scrolls Online that can all do unique things, like making your abilities poisonous, or you can summon like a Daedra. There are lots of stuff in this game in regard to sets.

You can find Skyshards out in the world, which you can collect to get more skill points. You can meet different guilds and factions. There’s a lot in Elder Scrolls Online in terms of exploration. It’s one of my favorite parts of the game.

10. Constant Updates 

Maybe a lot of you reading this article right now play World of WarCraft or Final Fantasy, which are some really large MMO today. And when you hear the term Elder Scrolls Online, you just think: it’s a dead game. It probably gets no content. Nobody really plays it...... 

You would be surprised to discover that a lot of people play this game. No matter where you go in the world, you’re going to be running into players. 

And in regard to the company behind the scenes making the content for this game, they are constantly pumping out updates whether they are new story chapters, dungeons, delves, zones, expansions, new ways to play the game like getting a follower introducing dragons and elsewhere. Whatever you want, these guys are just constantly pumping out new content into this world.

So, there’s always something to look forward to. Even right now in June, the newest Elder Scrolls Online expansion is coming out Necrom with a brand new class. Because the game has this constant steady stream of content, it does not get boring. And even when it does and you decide I’m going to take a break for a couple of months, when you come back, there’s always plenty more to do and plenty more to explore. 

EA Sports have lost the FIFA naming rights, which means it’s no longer going to be releasing FIFA 24. Instead, it is going to be EA Sports FC. So, in this article, we will discuss five new things that have already been confirmed for the new game.

1. There Will Still Be Women In Ultimate Team

*First, we do have women in Ultimate Team. This is something which caught absolutely everybody off guard, but we should have probably seen it coming. We have had the option for quite a while now in FIFA to play with them in kickoff. Also, we did see Sam Kerr on a FIFA cover. I heard the rumor a long time ago and now EA Sports has decided it is going to be happening in EA Sports FC.

So, we are probably going to be seeing both mixed men and women in Ultimate Team. I don’t see how we’re going to be having a separate mode just for women and men. It would be too much for EA Sports to handle, having to release promos new Team of the Week every single week, separately. I don’t see that happening. It’s definitely going to be in some way mixed in.

And, we have seen this tweet of course by Fut Sheriff leaking this and we do have EA Sports on their website, the EA Sports FC announcement page. We do have the UEFA Women’s Champions League that has been confirmed. We do also have the National Women’s Soccer League, which is the equivalent of the MLS. And we also have the Women’s Super League that is the equivalent of the Premier League. All of these are going to be coming.

Fut Sheriff is also confirmed that we’re going to be getting Women Icons and Marta Brazilian is a prediction. So, again, it will be interesting to see how it’s all going to be playing out.

2. Brand Promos

*Next, we do have brand promos in Ultimate Team. Adidas Numbers up was a promo we did see in FIFA 22. That was obvious with the Adidas brand. We have also seen collaboration with the Marvel brand in FIFA 23. Of course, we had Marvel FUT Heroes. And you can get them by using your FUT 23 Coins.

Vincent on Twitter has confirmed that we’re going to be seeing more of these and we do have many announcements already by different brands, for example Pepsi on Twitter. They did confirm that they are partners with EA Sports FC, so I feel like we could maybe see a Pepsi promo and I did make this a concept with Messi.

We could also see perhaps something with PlayStation. PlayStation did also tweet on other social media as well that EA Sports FC and sort of their partnership is going to be continuing. So, I do think that we’re going to be seeing something like this. What impresses me the most is the PlayStation Pack that appeared in FIFA 22. This was given out for free to all PlayStation Plus Members. So, I do think there is going to be a cross with more brands, for example Pepsi, PlayStation and even more brands that we haven’t even seen announcements from.

Also Read: FIFA 23: Best Tips For The Start Of TOTS Weekend League

3. Academy

*The next thing confirmed in EA Sports FC is for the Academy. Now it’s unclear whether this is going to be a separate mode or if this is going to be somehow integrated into objectives. Maybe it could just be a different tab on the objectives page, but this is essentially going to be allowing you to choose a player and then level him up. So, maybe this is going to be working just over time. Every single season, it just going to be upgrading automatically or maybe it could be you’re involved in the progression.

But it will be quite interesting to see how this is going to be working. It should be similar to Future Stars Academy, so it will be quite cool. Obviously, those objectives used to be very popular and I do think now it is going to have that sort of uniqueness. Everybody is going to be able to choose their own player and everyone’s going to have something different. It’s not just going to be everyone’s forced or if they want to participate, they are forced to have this one player. This is going to be quite cool.

Maybe they could also do something different with the Moments mode. I do think that was quite a waste this year. So, that’s going to be revamped if this is going to be involved with that somehow because that we did have a sort of Moments Tokens. Anyway, we’ll see more information from EA but FUT Academy is going to be an EA Sports FC.

4. New Icons

*Next, we do have new icons. This is something which we do see. Every single year, a few new players are added. And women this year in Ultimate Team will also get icons. There’s going to be more leaks and even more announcements, obviously for that.

But we do already have two new icons that have been confirmed. Fut Donk has said that they are in the code and also he mentioned them being in the trailer. I’m not too sure which trailer he is referring to. But Gento is going to be coming. I do believe he’s going to be Spanish. They have given him a left-wing position, and he does look quite decent.

We do also have Di Stefano. This is going to be a huge icon, which is very popular. And he is either going to be Spanish or Argentinian. We’re not too sure. I think maybe he played for both countries or something like that. But this has been going on for a while now. Everybody on Twitter is just debating which country he is going to be representing. Obviously, it’s only possible to represent one, but whichever one it is going to be, I do think Di Stefano should be a very solid icon.

One thing I want to mention here is that the Barcelona Stadium Camp now is going to be coming into EA Sports FC. But unfortunately, according to Fut Donk, this isn’t going to be happening. There were actually some rumors that this was going to be happening. There have been a lot of false rumors, including the Transfer Market being removed or things like that. Do not believe anything until you do see a reliable source and also confirmation from EA Sports.

5. Release Time For EA Sports FC

But the last thing which has been confirmed is the release date by Fut Sheriff. He has said that we are going to be getting EA Sports FC on September 29th and I do believe this is going to be the standard worldwide release date.

Usually, we see Ultimate Edition getting three days before that, so Ultimate Edition will potentially release on the 26th. And then, we do usually get Early Access or EA Play, which includes the 10 hours of the free trial. I mean, you don’t have to actually pay for it.

But there is going to be some sort of something similar to EA Play, but Fut Sheriff did say it’s going to be a little different this year. So, that’s going to be quite exciting and don’t forget: we are going to be seeing more official information from EA Sports in July.

Path of Exile is an action RPG that markets itself as being the best ARPG on the market in terms of character customizations. If you have ever played Diablo 3 and thought that it’s very simple or straight up just looking for a serious game to play for the next couple of years, then keep reading as today we will go over the top 10 things that you must know in detail before thinking about making Path of Exile the next big thing in your life.

1. Monetization

First, we got monetization. Most of you already know that you can basically boot up Path of Exile and start playing for free. But is Path of Exile really free to play any sense where you can continue playing without spending any money and compensate for that with your skills?

In your first 50 to 100 hours, you won’t feel the need to purchase anything. That’s until you realize that you are running out of space. Path of Exile gives you four generic Stash Tabs. This can hold pretty much anything. The problem is simple things like POE Currency are more than enough to eventually flood these Stash Tabs.

There are also maps and a bunch of other league specific currencies like Fossils, Catalysts and Scarabs and many others that you have to store. Of course, that’s aside from the rest of your items. In a few words, the game becomes unplayable at some point unless you purchase Stash Tabs.

The bare minimum amount of in-game currency that you have to spend in order to get essential Stash Tabs are: 75 points on a Currency Stash Tab, 150 points on a Map Stash Tab and another 150 points on one Premium Quad Stash Tab, which is required if you wish to participate in the item market.

All of that is going to cost you close to 40 US dollars, which is what I think is the bare minimum that you have to spend in order to keep playing for almost ever.

So, is Path of Exile really free to play? The short answer is no.

2. Complexity

The second point we want to talk about is complexity.

Path of Exile complexity is not actually as hard as people make it out to be. It’s just filled with so much information and details that you have to memorize. If you wish to play the game properly, just to put this into perspective. I spent over 10,000 hours playing this game. More than half of that time is spent on learning. Even today, I still get to learn something now and then.

Path of Exile is not difficult. It just needs lots of time to learn and it only becomes fun once you learn it. Unless you are seriously considering pouring multiple thousands of hours into this game, I don’t recommend playing it.

3. Grind

The third point that you must know in detail before playing Path of Exile is the grind.

Simply learning the game isn’t enough to make POE Currency. If you wish to play it properly, then you should know that: in order to keep up with seasonal players in competitive environments like League, then you have to play no less than 8 hours every day. Some people even play up to 15 hours a day on league launch.

The reason why this matters is that only those who reach endgame early are the ones who make the most amount of currency and those who make the most amount of currency controls the economy. It is basically like real life. It seems unfair, but that’s one of the things that makes Path of Exile the unique game it is and on top of this, it’s possible for you to spend an entire day playing without getting a single good drop.

Path of Exiel is a very RNG heavy game. If you hate feeling unrewarded for your time sometimes, then Path of Exile is simply not for you.

4. Difficulty

The fourth point we have is difficulty. Not to be confused with difficulty or complexity, it is one thing to understand the basics of a game and it’s a completely different thing to learn how to play it.

If you are literally coming from any other ARPG, then you need to know that Path of Exile weakest aspect is visual clarity. Both monsters and players deal with an extremely high amount of damage compared to their respective life poles. And what ends up happening as a result is that you either one shot everything or everything one shot you. You will be in an extremely chaotic atmosphere where you don’t realize what’s happening before it actually happens.

It is the least engaging combat style out of any other ARPG out there and journey Path of Exile biggest downside. It is for this specific reason why Path of Exile is considered difficult. No matter how cautious you are, you will eventually find yourself in a situation where you died and there is nothing you could have done to prevent that.

5. Endgame

For our fifth point, we are going to talk about the endgame.

Path of Exile’s endgame is where it is at. There are so many things you can do and so many endgame bosses to challenge for their loot. There are also so many league content for you to engage with, from many previous updates to enough content to keep you occupied and engaged for thousands of hours. You can go Delve, you can farm Legion, you can do Harvest, you can do Blighted Maps and more.

Best part of it is that every different league mechanic has its own target load to aim for. Basically, Path of Exile’s endgame allows you to specialize in whatever you want. The game even has its own separated passive tree that its sole purpose is to allow you to customize your endgame experience. No other game comes even remotely close to Path of Exile in that regard.

6. Crafting

The sixth important point that you need to know is crafting. In Path of Exile, you build a strong character by purchasing items for it from other people with your currency.

Most of this currency will come by crafting your own items and sell them to these people for profit. Learning how to craft is detrimental to progressing in this game and I’m not going to lie crafting is like a vast ocean.

Now, I know that the landing speed of one person differs from another, but as for me, it took me over 2,000 hours to master crafting in this game. And I did take the game seriously. As for a more casual player, it’s going to take them even more. That being said, don’t let that discourage you from getting into crafting, as you don’t need to learn everything to get started.

7. Multiplayer

Our seventh point is multiplayer. I want you guys to know that aside from the ability to chat and trade with other players, Path of Exile isn’t really a multiplayer game.

Sure, you can invite people to a party and go kill a boss with them or something like that, but you almost never want to do that in 99% of content you go through in Path of Exile with some very few exceptions.

Party play is generally something that people avoid as it slows down their progress. Unless you are XP farming for level 100, odds are you will be playing solo simply because party play doesn’t actually reward you with anything that you can’t get by playing Solo.

In fact, recently, the game developers killed party play by heavily reducing the load that they generate with 3.19 patch. That’s the more reason for you to be playing Solo.

You May Interest: Best Righteous Fire Juggernaut Build In POE 3.21! - Beginner Friendly

8. The Developers

Speaking about the developers, it is the next thing that we are going to talk about.

GGG Dev Team, the creators of Path of Exile are well known for their vision, a vision that’s all about slowing down Path of Exile as much as possible. Now, I’m not talking about gameplay. I’m talking about character progression.

The dev team has been doing nothing but nerfing every possible avenue for players to attain power because they believe that the more you have to grind every day to get what you want, the longer you will be sticking around playing a league. This helps to improve player attention numbers at the cost of every individual player's experience. You are expected to play no less than 10 hours a day to experience everything that this game has to offer.

Basically, the developers want Path of Exile to become a second day job for you, one that doesn’t pay you anything. If you are a busy person with important things to do in real life, then unfortunately, you are not the target demographic for Path of Exile and its developers.

9. The Community

However, with that being said coming, we have the complete opposite of the dev team, which is the community. Allow me to say that despite the inconveniences that come alongside playing such a complicated game like Path of Exile, you get a bunch of people who are willing to sacrifice their time to help the community by making some useful tools to save time.

One good example is Craft of Exile, a website that shows you the possible odds of spawning every single modifier in the game on an item. It also allows you to simulate your next crafting project without having to waste currency on it inside the game.

You can also plan your next build with another useful tool called Path of Building, an application that tells you which passives to allocate in order to better boost your damage and survivability without having to go through trial and error inside the game and more.

10. Future Game Support

Now, for our final point, we are going to talk about future game support.

Path of Exile is an ever-growing game in terms of league mechanics. The gaming graphics even becomes noticeably better with each update.

In the future, GGG is planning on releasing Path of Exile 2. It is not a separate game, but a major expansion to an already growing Path of Exile. This is big because you can start playing Path of Exile now without having to worry about changing games anytime soon.

Path of Exile 2 is an ambition project to expand the main game. It will improve graphics and simplify some complicated game mechanics, like gym linking.

In short, it’s worth diving into Path of Exile now, but only if you are willing to take it seriously. This means having no real life commitments preferably for the next couple of years and yes, this does include marriage anyway.

We’re going to be looking at three awesome places to grind out rabbit kills so you can get your Easter event rewards as fast as possible before we get into that

Rabbit’s Revenge Event - Release Time & Rewards

The new Easter Event Rabbit’s Revenge starting on April 12th and going until April 26th. There are a couple of really cool rewards to look forward to. All the rabbits in New World during this period will be transforming into these bigger corrupted versions and have a chance of exploding when they die. This will be very similar to the event they did for Easter last year, but with a couple of new rewards and added lore.

The main two items you want to look out for from these new rabbits are the Defiled Storage Chest of the Hare, which is the same from last year and a pretty cool new mask skin called a Corrupted Rabbit Mask.

Last year, the chest was a big cause of pain for many users since some people killed thousands of rabbits without it. But thankfully this year, you’re guaranteed this chest after 400 kills if you have not gotten it already. You can hold 1050 weight in this chest, so it’s pretty great, and it looks awesome as well.

How To Get These Rewards?

The mask is purely cosmetic and is guaranteed after 200 kills if it hasn’t dropped for you yet, but I can see some very interesting transmog options with this mask. Along with these two items, you’ll be getting your daily gypsum from rabbits up to a total of six per day and up to five Defiled Rabbit’s Feet, which can be consumed for increased luck. So, even if you already got your two drops, it’s worth getting a few rabbit kills per day for these items.

It’s worth noting when going after these items, luck gear will have no effect on your drops. But if you want to kill two birds with one stone, you might as well throw on some Skinning Luck gear while killing the rabbits for better odds at rare rabbit meets.

Also, since these rabbits are so easy to kill, ranged weapons are best to be most efficient, especially the Musket due to its long range. And, if you’re having issues find any rabbits in certain areas, don’t forget to use your compass at the top of your screen to locate them. Sometimes, they are hidden in a bush right beside you.

Three Spots To Grind Rabbits

Next, let’s go over the three spots I like to use to grind out my rabbit kills.

*The first location we’re going to be looking at is over in Brightwood. You can teleport into the main city and then head north along the path up to the Tempest Valley Shrine and then further along to the Imperial Shrine. There're tons of rabbits spawning along this path, so be able to get tons of kills up here.

*Next up is Everfall. You want to be teleporting into the main city and slowly making your way down to the Excavated Shrine, weaving side to side, keeping an eye on their spawn location map and trying to stay in the areas most populated. Because this is such a low level zone, though, I could see a lot of people using this area and bots as well, just because any roaming monsters won’t be of much thread.

*The third and final spot is over in Ebonscale Reach. If you're a high level player, this will be a perfect spot for you since the higher level mobs will scare away the newer players. Simply teleport into the main city and follow the path on the screen just outside the city, killing all the rabbits in your path. Then, head back to the city when you have killed enough.

New World Map

If you tried all these locations and there are too many people taking all the rabbit spawns, then you can check out a really cool resource called New World Map. But if you hide all the things on the map and only show rabbits, it'll show you all the places they spawn on the map and simply go to any area very populated by rabbit spawns and grind until your heart is content.

Related: New World: What’s New For Season 1?

More Tips

Now, let's go over a couple more tips and tricks to maximize this event for you. For starters, when hunting for rabbits in an area, I like to move my camera from side to side, keeping an eye on my radar as I'm running the routes, so I don't miss any of the rabbits. Because sometimes they're hidden by the vegetation.

Also, when it comes to event items like the Defiled Rabbit's Foot, if you're not interested in the love benefits from this item, still hold on to them for a few months because after the event has finished, the prices will just go up and up as time passes. That means you have to spend more New World Coins later.

The same applies for any rabbit related food like the Sumptuous Rabbit meat because so many people will be hunting these rabbits. Prices will drop like crazy. So, for any of these items you gain during this period, hold on to them for a while until prices go back up. If you want, you can even purchase tons of them while prices are at all time lows and eventually sell them on for crazy profits.

This is my opinion. Here’s my subjective take on the best and worst parts of Diablo 2, Diablo 3 and Diablo 4.

Best Part Of Diablo 2

Starting with the best thing about Diablo 2, I just love the itemization in this game. Unique Items can be really powerful and so can rare items. Even certain magic or blue items have the ability to be best in the slot, the wide range of low to high-level set.

Items have bonuses that in niche cases can be really strong or I might craft myself a pair of orange gloves to get a crushing blow and then you even have gray items with open sockets.

It’s even worth picking up wide items as I can potentially turn them gray for a Runeworld base and a Helm. It’s not just a Helm. There’s like a hundred different Helm types that have different requirements and potential bonuses.

My point is pretty much all items have the potential to be useful in Diablo 2 and don’t get me started on Runewords. And D2R items can roll with plus skills on them from other classes, so my Assassin can all of a sudden use the Sorceress teleport because I found his staff with plus teleport charges.

Or I can use the Druid’s Spirits summoned via this ring, so my Paladin gets more life. I mean that’s just really outstanding in my opinion and makes building and designing your character really satisfying both through the skill tree and stats that you carefully choose, but especially through the itemization.

Best Part Of Diablo 3

On to the best thing about Diablo 3, I love how fun clicking buttons and killing Demons is in Diablo 3 like there’s a casual, like Arcadey feel to this game, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

The satisfying spells along with the simplicity and accessibility make this an amazing couch Co-op like console experience, perhaps with your kids or your girlfriend who’s new to gaming or even on PC with your online friends pushing the limits of the game.

I also love how Diablo 3 has come so far since its release pretty messy with a lot of systems that didn’t work at all back then. But I feel like they’ve really cleaned it up and really doubled down on its strengths.

Now, it’s got this fun farming simulator vibe to it where I can just jump in and feel like I’m an overpowered God and at certain times of the month, I enjoy that.

Best Part Of Diablo 4

What I think is the best thing about Diablo 4 after playing the beta is the freshness, a new Diablo game, a new story, new end game, the community hype. It’s intriguing and really sparks my curiosity and hunger to play the game.

Building up my character in Diablo 4 is like a new problem to solve and you’re not to crack, so to speak. Therefore, in the early game, you need to prepare enough Diablo 4 Gold to improve your character.

Read More: What You Need To Know About Diablo IV End Game Modes?

The foundation of the gameplay feels incredible to me, like just killing the first wolf at level one. I already had fun and I love that feeling of exploring a new game that I’m passionate about.

Now, I’ve only played the beta, so I’m expecting to have a lot more thoughts on this once the game is out.

Worst Part Of Diablo 2

Onto the worst things about these games, Diablo 2 absolutely lacks of in-game content. Like after playing this game for thousands of hours, there’s not much left to do. Besides, doing it all over again and it can get a little repetitive.

Even now with Diablo II: Resurrected, I’m a little disappointed with how minor changes they’re making to this game, like adding a few new boring items per season just isn’t enough to make me want to play it. I’d really love to see them be more brave and make more bold changes to really shake this game out.

Other than that, the depth and the complexity of this game isn’t that obvious and can be hard for new players to appreciate. I’ve found that my friends who tried for the first time often find the gameplay slow and unengaging coming from other more fast-paced modern titles, which is understandable since the game is 23 years old (release time of Diablo 2: June 28, 2000).

To me, it’s only once you know a lot of the ins and outs of Diablo 2 that it becomes the awesome and fun game that it is and even when you think about everything, there’s still more to discover. But a lot of people never get there. So, I’d say it’s almost too complicated and non-user friendly.

Worst Part About Diablo 3

The worst part of Diablo 3 I’d have to say is just the scaling of everything. I mean, what are these numbers? What’s going on on my screen? And sometimes it just makes me sick.

I’d much more appreciate and savor the whole experience if it was stripped down a bit. The minor change I want is like Diablo 2, where your items rather than give you ten thousand percent extra damage, you get a slight increase to your cash rate and your teleporting feels much better.

I personally prefer that system of slightly tweaking and fine-tuning different aspects of my character.

Worst Part Of Diablo 4

Finally, the worst thing about Diablo 4 I have to mention is the exact same thing as Diablo 3.

The scaling, especially the item affixes just stacking percentage bonus damage: 10% to crowd controlled mobs and 12% overpower damage.

Just this one aspect of the game feels a little chaotic to me and doesn’t feel as satisfying as a system like Diablo 2 where my Sorcerer steals two and a half thousand damage just from being the level she is. And with full gear, the damage doubles.

In summary, I have a love hate relationship with all three of these games for different reasons. Do you agree with my pros and cons of each Diablo game?

Here are some huge World of Warcaft private server news. It’s not often we get a high quality, fresh TBC server. I’m going to be checking out and playing in Netherwing. This is a brand new server by Stromforge and a fresh server that just launched only one day ago.

Intro

I’ll be talking about the servers’ massive and successful launch, and a bit about the servers’ unique features. I’m talking about increased exp rates and going over the incentives the developers are offering players in the hopes of creating healthy faction balance.

If you plan on rolling Alliance this time around in the Burning Crusade, then you’re going to love some of these new changes.

Start

The private server scene had been popping off the last few months, we have a few vanilla plus servers pulling huge player numbers, like Turtle WoW or Duskhaven, and then there are what I would consider more molded versions of WoW, like Ascension: Classless WoW. Now, we have a server that is, a little more old school and a little more like what we in the private server community are used to.

Stormfordge’s new fresh TBC Server Netherwing launched with a massive 4700 players online. That is pretty good for private servers in 2023.

Now, TBC isn’t my favorite expansion, but a lot of people really enjoy it. I will admit that the Burning Crusade is absolutely stacked with PVE content. You have Karazhan, Gruul’s Lair, SSC, Tempest Keep, Black Temple and Sunwell. Not to mention, this was the first expansion that arena was introduced, and although I don’t think it was the best in terms of balance, there are of people that like the fast-paced TBC PVP meta.

TBC isn’t without its flaws, however, private servers have been plagued with awful faction balance, because with arena, the Horde racials like Will of the Forsaken and ORCs stun resist are OP to say at least. Players generally don’t like playing sub optimally, so it’s not really the players’ fault for not choosing Horde over Alliance.

Racial Swap

But this is where Netherwing had been some really nice changes. You now have the ability to racial swap, any race can not learn any other races’ racial abilities.

You can be a Gnome with Will of the Forsaken, or a Dwarf with the Troll berserkers’ ability. Thus goes a long way in balancing the server out, but the devs didn’t stop there.

Server Features

They added unique incentives to alliance players. For example, you get your lv 60 ground mount for free and dual spec (free for alliance).

• Battle-tested Core: Netherwing will once again be powered by AtlantissCoreTBC with two successful realms and years of development put into it!
• Proven Developers: Stormforge Team is composed of Atlantiss and Tauri members with years of experience under our belts!
• Helpful Support: Our support team is here to assist you with any issue you might have!
• Faction Balance: Additional balancing measures to ensure the game isn’t one-sided.
• Racial Swap: Play the race you want, pick the racial abilities you want.
• Dual Talent Specialization: Extra talent tree for those willing to take multiple roles or experiment!
• Dynamic Quest Item Drops: Each time a quest item fails to drop, your chance of getting it from the next enemy mob increases until your bad streak is over!
• Shared Quest Items: Majority of quest items will drop for the entire group, making leveling with friends and all these changes seems to have worked, so far.

The faction balance, as of now, is roughly 50/50. The server is also 3x leveling speed, which has its advantages and disadvantages. It can be difficult to get the required WoW 10.0 Gold for mounts and talents while leveling, but leveling up quickly through the old classic content is nice. There were a lot of people looking for group, and it seems like 5 man dungeon grinding is the fastest way to level up. There are at least a few people who have already reached level 70, which is impressive.

The server has been remarkably stable for a fresh launch, there really haven’t been any crashes or roll backs so far. Which has been great!

Server Issues

My only real complaint or issue I’ve had while playing is that I had to disable my second monitor to adjust the screen resolution to 1920x1080 or get it to switch to windowed mode. So, that’s a quick tip if you’re having the same issue.

My other complaint is that the general chats, like trade, world of general have not been very active, I’m not sure if thus is because it’s a more international community, but there isn’t a lot of talking going on, for 4700 people online, this just seems odd for me. Or maybe I’m just spoiled, as I’ve been playing on Turtle WoW recently and have really been enjoying newcomers chat.

I think Vanilla Plus and Hardcore have ruined playing on regular Classic Era servers for me, at least for a while. But playing on Darkhaven or Turtle WoW, with all their changes, and quality of life improvement has made much of the Classic Era servers feel a bit stale.

Conclusion

Now, if you want a stable, fresh TBC server, run by a professional and competent veteran development team, then Netherwing is for you.

There aren’t many complaints I have, it is what it is, I’ll be checking it out in the future, to see how it’s doing, but I don’t have any plans on leveling to 70.

I think it’s moving towards classic or Vanilla Plus. Netherwing has made some significant changes, but there isn’t any new content that I’ve heard of and it’s just not enough for me to give up my time on other more interesting and new servers.

If you’ve been following the classic scene, you’ve definitely noticed that private servers are making a big comeback as the major way to play the game and it’s really easy to see why. 

What Are Private Servers?

People love classic fresh and Blizzard’s been way too slow rolling out Season of Mastery 2. But if you’re an official Server Andy Detected, you may not realize what these servers are doing and why they’re so popular. 

I’ve been researching as much as I can and I’ve been talking to friends who love these servers, so I can tell you the five reasons why private servers are the future classic at least unless Blizzard gets their act together. 

Private Servers Are Better At Classic Plus

*First up, private servers are just doing the plus experience better. If you’ve been looking for the Classic Plus experience with new Zones quests and Dungeons. Servers like Turtle WoW are just doing it better and faster than Blizzard.

My personal favorite Classic Plus system might just be the glyph (Glyph of War) system. That system enables distinct challenges, like the hardcore mode where your character actually gets deleted if you die and we might see that we get some small tweaks here and there on classic servers, we’ll never get Classic Plus the level of Turtle WoW.

*Private server developers have so much more freedom to innovate and actually do what people want and that’s one thing private servers are just doing so much better right now - Innovation.

Innovation In WoW Classic

Isn’t it weird that every made major private server aims to improve and innovate to make the classic experience better? Getting a really simple feature like cross realm battlegrounds took nearly four years from Blizzard and while the popular Cataclysm server Whiteman already offers new features like cross-faction gameplay, Solo Arena Queue and even a PVP Spectator Mode.

And Turtle WoW offers new dungeons that perfectly fit into the leveling experience and that’s on top of the new zones, professions, titles and even music. The simple features like dual spec are no-brainers for Turtle WoW while Blizzard might think about adding them in some sex and this complete lack of short-term innovation is really going to hurt Blizzard long term. Think about how much more interesting Classic Cataclysm would be if Blizzard was committed to innovation as much as they were back in 2004.

Players Are Calling The shots

*But that leads to my third point with private servers. Actually, players are making all the decisions. 

If you’re looking to maximize profit, it’s really easy to lose sight of what’s good for the players. Unfortunately, private servers have really exposed how out of balance things have gotten. Things like the massively imbalanced servers leading to the paid faction transfers and, of course, there’s been the massive rising popularity of GDKP.

Even though I do run a few and I personally suspect they left the about wrath racial, just so they could sell a few race transfers. But on the other hand, you can easily find private servers like Maelstrom where GDKP is banned. Racial can be swapped in an NPC and the idea of a Pay to Win cash shop is absolutely laughable.

*Really, just imagine how fun classic could be if you could implement Turtle Wow’s Turtle mode. It all comes down to the fact that these new private servers have developers like Turtle WoW Shang, a long-time fan of Hardcore WoW and a classic WoW addict.

I played hardcore for three months straight in Season of Mastery and all I got was an icon. But since the developers of Turtle WoW love hardcore, they implemented a title, a tablet and a mount for hitting 60. And having long time WoW fans like Shang as your administrators helps a whole lot with the sense of community.

Related: WoW: What Blizzard Should Do To Make Season of Mastery 2 A Successful Launch?

*I see somewhere along the way Blizzard forgot how passionate GMs’ excellent support is and events can make the in-game experience so much more special.

If you read the pitches from recent and upcoming private servers, there’re no coincidences community. It’s all about how there are real humans that will assist you with your issues within 24 hours. If you make a mistake getting the wrong item, they’ll help you. If you’re hosting a big server event, GMs will actually help you to spawn mobs and objects in the game and turtle wow even offers custom Guild Housing if your Guild’s been active for at least three months.

Blizzard has left some massive holes where private servers are taking over. The private server community has happily gone ahead with new expansions and even new game modes. And servers like Turtle WoW thriving with the Classic Plus model peaking at over 4,700 players. Within the next few years, if you want to play Classic Plus, you’ll have to play it on a private server and that’s why unless something changes, private servers are the future of Classic WoW. Though the short-term future of Classic WoW is Season of Mastery 2.

I’m playing on the Turtle WoW, a vanilla + private server and having a blast leveling up my Shaman Raid Tank, which is a thing on Turtle WoW and the servers has been crazy now, with a server population hitting hundreds of thousands of players online on weekends.

While leveling, I’ve been thinking a lot about what would the ideal Classic Era timeline would even look like? What and when should Blizzard release - things like official hardcore servers, classic + or vanilla + servers, classic cataclysm? And more importantly, what do we as a community even want to see? Because now’s the time to let Blizzard know what we want from them. So, today I thought we can talk about what the timeline for Classic Era and WoW could end up being in the next few years.

Classic Era has been exploding the last few months, we have Classic Era Hardcore getting super popular, there’s even Hardcore PVE Races now, like real Competitions with actual prize pools, we have Classic Era servers growing month after month, WotLK Classic is well... It’s currently in between major patches, then there’s classic vanilla + servers like Turtle WoW and Duskhaven reaching all-time high populations.

Recently, there’s been rumors that Blizzard is releasing dedicated Hardcore Servers for Classic Era, and we just don’t know what form these servers are going to take, what the rule set is going to be, how integrated the achievements are going to be, is the server rule set going to be more like the original solo hardcore challenge we are all familiar with, or will Blizzard go for a more fun, group oriented hardcore experience like Turtle WoW.

Will there be titles, mounts for any rewards? Will the hardcore experience last past 60? These are all questions that need to be answered and quickly. I think Blizzard needs to release these hardcore servers as soon as possible, as the demand for them is only continuing to grow,

And it’s these hardcore challenges that are probably the main reason why we have seen a revitalization of the classic era servers. It’s not the only reason, of course. Vanilla has always held a special place in my heart just like a lot of people, and I think there will always be a population of players willing to play on classic era servers, but let’s be honest, if Blizzard released FRESH Classic Era Servers, that progressed from vanilla, to TBC to WotLK Classic all over again, 10,000s of people would dive into Classic Era again.

And I could see Blizzard doing just this at the end of WotLK Classic. Which brings us to what Blizzard should do after WotLK Classic ends. For me, it’s a no brainier that Blizzard is going to add classic cataclysm. But, it is a big decision point. I don’t think WotLK is that popular in terms of numbers, there just isn’t that much to do, it’s essentially an ICC waiting room. So, it’s possible Blizzard might just think the hype is over and move into a Classic, TBC, WotLK Classic maintenance mode.

But from a business perspective I think cataclysms success is already baked in, most of the Classic WoW player base is already expecting the classic experience to last until mists of pandaria and will happily sub just to enjoy the PVP alone as the two expansions are largely regarded as some of the best Arena ever, as well as some of the hardest most challenging classic PVE, at least in cata with some of the introductory raids being well… impossible for most guilds.

I know this would split the classic player base, but I think Blizzard should release a classic era fresh, that progresses all the way to WotLK Classic and beyond, and release Classic Cataclysm at the end of WOTLK. It’s unfortunate, but only from the perspective that fewer people might be playing in Cataclysm, so who cares, people will play classic era, they will play cata, they will pay, retail season of mastery, and hardcore, and private servers, let’s be honest, it’s all a bit of a mess for Blizzard right now.

So, just release it all and let the players decide where they want to play. After Cataclysm and a potential Mysts of pandaria, Blizzard needs to seriously consider a classic + server. The success or private servers like Turtle WoW, and Duskhaven has shown that the demand for classic + is very real and it’s doesn’t take a while a lot of effort to add basic things like new quests, items, zones. Duskhaven is being developed by literally ONE person and has dozens of awesome changes. Blizzard just needs to hand over development to a group of passionate creative people, that can make some changes and keep Classic WoW fresh.

Blizzard could even release the initial changes in a Season of Mastery style server to test and see the reaction of the player base. If they don’t release something like Classic +, Classic Era will eventually fade into irreverence and worse, go down in history as being one of the biggest wastes of an excellent opportunity in history.

In short, blizzard should first release a dedicated hardcore server as soon as possible, and with the end of Classic WOTLK, release classic cataclysm while offering FRESH Classic Era Servers, later develop classic +, even if it ends up being in a season of mastery style server.

I fully expect something like this to unfold over the next 4 years. It’s a very exciting time to be a World of WarCraft player, never before has the player base been so divided because there has never been so much different content, but that’s a good thing, Blizzard should embrace this fact, and not be afraid to release even more.

Animal Crossing Pocket Camp on Smart Devices is of course still going strong 5 years on… But something pretty big is affecting the gaming industry right now in Austria, and if the history of Animal Crossing is anything to go by, Pocket Camp could be in trouble, and could potentially be Banned or Removed from the App Stores altogether, at least in parts of Europe…

Now, something pretty significant has just happened in Austria surrounding Sony and FIFA… Don’t worry, this will completely loop back round to Animal Crossing, I promise, just bear with me. In the last couple of weeks, in a case against Sony, regarding FIFA, courts have decided that Loot Boxes, in one form or another, violate the Gambling Laws in Austria.

This is essentially because in certain instances, players are of course paying (such as spending money to get more FUT 23 Coins) for random drops and not necessarily knowing the outcome, or what they’re actually purchasing. Specifically, I believe where certain rewards hold a monetary value, and therefore almost certainly fall under the gambling umbrella.

Anyway, the court ruled in favour of FIFA players, and to cut a long story short, have ordered Sony, the Platform, rather than EA, the publishers of FIFA, to pay out these claims, and pay back Loot Box charges to the Players. It’s a pretty complex issue, so if you want to learn more about that specific case, definitely google it.

Now, despite this specific case affecting FIFA and PlayStation, it’s likely going to have an impact on Loot Boxes and gaming in general, as it’s set a new precedent in Austria, surrounding this type of monetisation.

Anyway, I’m sure you know where I’m going with this, but Animal Crossing Pocket Camp, which is still played by millions all around the world, including a Loot Box mechanic very similar to this. If you head to the Market Place in Pocket Camp, you can, of course, spend Leaf Tickets, which is Pocket Camp’s Premium Currency on a Fortune Cookie, that once opened awards a random ACNH Items.

In many instances, players can even spend real-life money to obtain these Fortune Cookies. Now whether or not, new laws come in (because of the Sony Case) to prevent this type of monetisation surrounding Loot Boxes and alleged gambling violations, it’s likely to become a bigger issue in Austria and surrounding regions and create a bit of a grey area for games like Pocket Camp.

And I wouldn’t be surprised if Nintendo are already looking into this further… With this in mind, there’s every possibility that Pocket Camp, or any game that includes Gacha Mechanics or Loot Boxes like Fortune Cookies, could be banned in European Regions. And even if they don’t, Nintendo could decide they don’t want to risk it, and pull the game down anyway and remove it from App Stores…

Now, I know what you’re thinking, this is all speculation, I’m jumping to conclusions, and leaping to the worst-case scenario… Now whilst I am speculating here, we have seen this exact situation occur in the past in Belgium in 2019, again in Europe, when Nintendo literally removed both Animal Crossing Pocket Camp and Fire Emblem Heroes from the App Stores in that region.

This happened when Belgium introduced anti-gambling laws, creating a grey area for Loot Boxes in video games, and then led to new laws being passed that banned Loot Boxes altogether in video games. Interestingly enough, Belgium’s governing bodies at the time, also ordered the likes of FIFA to removed Loot Boxes from their games in the Region… which I believe they did, with the understanding that if they didn’t they’d face millions in fines and even prison time.

However, even now, Animal Crossing Pocket Camp cannot be downloaded or played legitimately in Belgium and some neighbouring counties. And rather than removing the Fortune Cookies when this happened in 2019, Nintendo removed the entire game.

So, with new headlines surrounding Loot Boxes in Austria, with all eyes on Loot Boxes in a new region, and the likely hood of new laws coming in, it’s possible it’s only a matter of time until history literally repeats itself 4 years later, in another European country, and Pocket Camp is removed. Of course, this is a worst-case scenario.

There’s every chance Nintendo would simply remove Fortune Cookies this time around, rather than the whole game, especially now the game includes even more Monetisation models, but who knows, maybe this particular issues starts and ends on PlayStation, and Pocket Camp continues to thrive.

Since Chris Wilson announced Path of Exile 2 on the stage at ExileCon back in 2019, it's been nearly four years. Where has the time gone? With ExileCon 2 just around the corner, here's everything you should know about Path of Exile 2.

Campaign, Engine Upgrades & MTX

Path of Exile 2 will be a massive expansion of Path of Exile one rather than being a new stand-alone game. It will introduce a new 7x story campaign that can be played alongside the original campaign to access a shared endgame, the Atlas and mapping system we know and love.

We'll also be getting some juicy graphics updates in part from engine upgrades and back-end optimizations which will make the game look more like this - 16 times the detail.

There'll be plenty of new animations and environmental effects, too. And character models will be getting some updates, as well. But fear not, all of the MTX you've invested your hard-earned cash into over the years will still work in Path of Exile 2.

New Skill Gem And Socket System

One of the biggest changes coming to the game with Path of Exile 2 is the complete overhaul of the Skill Gem and Socket System. And Path of Exile 2, instead of socketing your support gems into linked sockets in your gear, you'll instead socket them directly into the active skill gem itself, which itself is then socketed into predetermined sockets in your gear.

There'll be a flashy new skill gem interface to support this change. Orbs of Fusing will be no more as the sockets and skill gems will always be linked and you'll be able to find up to three linked skill gems from item level 1 to 19: 4 linked skill gems from item level 20 onward, 5 linked skill gems from item level 35 onward and fully six-linked skill gems starting at item level 50.

Also did you spot that multi-colored socket? That's a new addition with the predetermined gear socket system and Path of Exile 2. Gear will always drop with the same number and color of sockets based on type, like this hybrid armor evasion helmet with a hybrid red and green socket which means it can be socketed with either color of gem.

Two-handed weapons will have four sockets. One-handed weapons and off hands will have two sockets each. Body armors will have two sockets and helmets, gloves and boots will have one socket each.

You will still be able to modify the color of sockets on gear with a new in-game currency and you will also be able to use Chromatic Orbs and Jewels to modify the sockets on skill gems. If you find a skilled gym with more links than the one you are using, you'll be able to destroy your current gem to apply the level and experience to the new gym to obtain more links.

19 New Ascendancy Classes

While the new socket and gem system may be the largest change that Path of Exile 2 will introduce, the addition of 19 new ascendancy classes might be the most anticipated feature.

The new ascendancies will be tied to the new campaign. So, if you want to play a Juggernaut or a Pathfinder, you will still need to play through the original campaign to reach the endgame.

The Ranger will be getting the new Survivalist ascendancy with an interesting dynamic with the skill tree having defensive options on the left side and defensive options on the right side.

One of the offensive options, Division grants you two copies of compatible skills socketed in your bow: one supported by GMP (Greater Multiple Projectiles) and the other by Barrage, potentially two seven links.

The Survivalist will also have an ascended-like choice between Fork, Pierce and Chain and the Multiplication skill that allows you to save your projectiles to build up larger bursts.

On the defensive side, we have Spell Avoidance, which convert your evasion into Spell Evasion. The Ranger will also be getting the Beastmaster ascendancy, which heavily supports the new shape-shifting abilities that will be coming in Path of Exile 2. This ascendancy will grant you the workout skill, a high crit shape-shifting ability, which you won't be able to find anywhere else.

You will also be able to spec into wild shape to massively improve shape-shifting bonuses and keep those bonuses even when you're in human form. Ally of the Wild will give you a nice little companion that will work like a Golem and provide buffs. You can even specialize into which type of companion you need.

The Rangers third new ascendancy, the Tactician, is possibly the most ambitious of them all. The Tactician will be able to continuously leave bombard areas with reigning arrows and even gain multiple uses of this skill, which will prevent enemies from attacking at range.

Meanwhile, the Siege Warfare and Siege Breaker notables will provide massive buffs to your totems like ensnaring enemies and making them take more range to attack damage and allowing the most recently placed totem to deal a lot more damage.

But the most interesting of all is the Close Combat Specialist, which will enable the Tactician to use ax and sword melee abilities with a bow. The developers did mention that they are re-rigging animations, which have made things like bows using melee animations possible and Path of Exile 2. We don't have a whole lot of information on the other ascendancies, but we do have some names and concepts.

Here's the Defiler, a new Witch ascendancy and the Arcanist, another Witch ascendancy that will have a heavy focus on lightning damage and charging up energy. There's also the Reaver, a war leader ascendancy for the Marauder, which will grant powerful bonuses to allies around him. And this, an unnamed Marauder ascendancy with a focus on Avatars and ancestral abilities.

New Weapon Types, Meta Gems, AI & UI

New ascendancies are pretty exciting. But there's also going to be new weapon tags, too.

We know of at least two of them, the Crossbow (Victory Core Power Shot Crossbow) and the Spear (Winged Spear). These new weapons seem to hint at a new direction in terms of gameplay in regards to your choice of weapon as both of them will grant new skills.

Crossbows grant implicit attack skills, such as PowerShot, a high damage single target ability. Instead of socketing attack skills, you can socket Crossbow bull types to augment the attack abilities and change what they do. We know of at least three types of bolts. Armor Piercing Incendiary and Permafrost.

Meanwhile, the Spear will allow you to use new engage and disengage abilities to provide freedom of movement and more interesting combat.

More Information

Aside from what we've already discussed in this article, there are a few more tidbits of information we have about Path of Exile 2.

We know that there will be a new gem type called metagems, which the developers described as the opposite of an active skill gem. Instead of socketing support gems into an active skill gem, you'll socket active gems into metagems. Like this Proficiency metagem for auras, which will allow you to turn all of your auras on or off with a single hotkey.

Cast on Critical Strike Support and Spell Totem Support will also be metagems. Speaking of Spell Totem, the developers also talked about tentative plans for new AI options to allow your Spell Totems to use skills in certain orders. In this example, they showcase the Spell Totem setup that will curse any uncursed enemies in the area before moving on to use other skills.

On the discussion of AI, they also mentioned that Monster Packs will have more interesting AI and Path of Exile, too, such as patrolling areas where appropriate.

Of course, you can also expect other upgrades, such as UI elements. like this new character sheet, which will provide information that is better laid out and easier to find.

During a discussion on some of the pain points of developing Path of Exile, the developers talked about having ascendancy skills, such as the pre-existing bomb armor (Bone Barrier) on the Necromancer or the new skills (Born to be Wild & Ally of the Wild) like those granted by the Beastmaster and having them scale as you progress in Path of Exile 2 instead of granting a static value like they do currently.

They weren't sure yet if this would be tied to level progress or based on when you take each ascendancy notable. The developers also talked about how the new ascendancy notables and Path of Exile 2 are designed to have far less clutter stats and instead focus on one or two impactful stats. They mentioned that the original ascendancies will need a rebalance to bring them to the same level.

We will know more information about Path of Exile 2 at ExileCon 2023 on July 29th and 30th in Auckland New Zealand.

If you’re having huge problems while defending the attackers in one versus one situation, then this is the exact guide you need to read to improve yourself. We are going to give you the core elements of one versus one defending to let you become a brick wall in the back.

Why 1v1 Defending Is Important?

Your defensive problem might already start a step earlier with understanding when you have to take charge and go for a manual one versus one defense against the Attacker. 

In my experience, there are a lot of players who hold themselves back defensively and try to cover the back area or they just try to let the AI (AI Defending) defend the Attacker. Both of these are going to give the opposition tons of space and they might do whatever they want without getting blocked.

Here as I receive the ball with my Attacker, my opponents, which is away from the player, who actually needs to defend him and he lets the AI do his work. However, with the skill move, I beat the Defender in square nice goal, which could be prevented by a manual one versus one defending. 

So, that means you have to take control, be confident, confront the opponent by yourself and try to block as many opportunities as possible. Of course, if you put the outstanding players, which you get by using FUT 23 Coins into the game, you will win the game more easily.

In a counter-attack situation, I know that I need to take responsibility as danger grows. I get close to Dribbler and also cover the passing lane at the same time. And once the other thread is over, I make my final move towards them in a one versus one and safely get the ball back.

We can safely say taking responsibility, observing what the opponent does, and taking action accordingly brings you to success in your defense. 

2. Positioning Defenders

Positioning your Defender is the most important thing in a one versus one situation. However, it is not easy since you have to watch out for different aspects.

Attackers will have different opportunities. They can dribble the ball, pass it to another teammate or even shoot it if they find the chance. Analyzing the occasion and seeing the next potential steps will decide your optimal positioning.

As a player myself, I tend to position my Defender directly in front of the opponent in a one versus one situation. You can always imagine a line between the Attacker and the Keeper and position yourself directly on it. I’ve seen that this method helped my students in my coachings a lot, so it might be also useful for you.

Instead of getting directly atom, I keep a safe distance between his Attacker and myself as long as he has the full control of the ball. This distance allows me to control all of his potential moves. 

If the Attacker tries to shoot, you are already between him and the goal, so you block it. If he tries to go left or right, the distance you gave him will allow you to do the same moment so that you can mirror his movements. 

There is one specific mechanic that will help you with the mirroring, which is to get the jockeying. Holding onto the L2 & LT button will let you go into a jockey, which is a magnificent defensive stance that allows you to keep your defensive positioning. Especially in tight 1 versus 1 situations, joking will help you avoid getting beaten by Attackers.

You can also use the jockey with the sprinting mechanic to go for a fast jokey if you see that the opponent is pacing up to things. Let’s see an example.

As the opponent approaches our box patiently, he looks for an opening, but we need to make sure that we use the imaginary line between the ball and the keeper and remain on it. 

Pressing the L2 and jockeying allows us to do little moves towards the sides, which don’t break our defensive positioning, and we remain in front of the opponent all the time, blocking every single opportunity.

Right after he decides to go in one of the directions and pushes the ball away, we chase him down confidently and get the ball away from him. 

After getting into the perfect position, it is time for you to decide when to execute a defensive mode to retrieve the ball.

3. When To Execute Defensive Moves?

In a one versus one, you will eventually have the opportunity to go for a defensive move. But if you do it too early or too late, you can give your opponent an unnecessary opening and concede to an easy goal. That is why waiting for the perfect moment is important.

But when it’s actually okay to execute the defensive moves, the answer is simple. The Attacker is most vulnerable right after he pushes the ball away from his feet. So, between two consecutive wall contacts, there is a brief moment that he’s not in full control of the ball and you need to catch this moment. Let me show you what I mean by this.

Here, as I received the ball with my Striker inside the box, the Defender positions himself in a suitable spot between me and the Keeper. However, he remains impatient with his tackling. He doesn’t pay attention to my ball contact and in the end, he goes for it in the wrong way, loses his defensive shape and concedes an easy goal.

In another scenario, I quickly take a look at the ball contacts of the opponent just because I see that he sprints and pushes the ball away. I know that this will delay his second contact on the ball, so I decide to select my Defender go on a one versus one challenge with him and retrieve the ball dominantly.

So, that means keeping your good positioning and patiently waiting for the Attacker’s vulnerable moment are the core elements of a one versus one defending position. 

In this article, I want to talk about the current state of Official Hardcore Servers in WoW Classic. Before I get started, I must stress that I am personally very supportive of Blizzard developing them.

Besides, I will also explain to you why this is not a priority for Blizzard, nor will it ever probably be a priority, and there is a slight chance we never get Official Hardcore Servers, no matter how much we really want them to happen, and that will be explained in this article. 

What Classic Hardcore Is?

Before we start though, I just want to do a quick recap on what Classic Hardcore is, as there is a chance someone has no idea what the term “hardcore” even refers to

Basically, Classic Hardcore is a No-Death leveling challenge in Classic WoW that is taking part mostly in the Classic Era Servers, with thousands of active players every single day. The goal of the challenge is to make it to level 60 without dying, and if you die and want to keep playing in the challenge, you have to start over from level 1 again. By the way, if you want to solve this problem, maybe you can use WOTLK Classic Gold to equip yourself.

When we talk about Official Hardcore Servers, this refers to Blizzard embracing the Classic Hardcore Gameplay & Community and supporting the movement by adding official Hardcore-type of servers, where if you die you can’t resurrect or you have to delete your character, basically permanent one-life servers. 

Pros Of Having Official Hardcore Servers

So, now that we are all caught up to speed, let me highlight some of the positive aspects of having Official Hardcore Servers. Before I introduce, some people might consider me being negative or just overall pessimistic, but it’s really me looking at the idea of Classic Hardcore Servers with an objective point of view and realizing that Blizzard is a business after all. 

Here are positive aspects of having Official Hardcore Servers:

#1

There’s an obvious demand for them. I did some player scans recently, showing exactly how many people were online at the same time on the Classic Era Hardcore Server for Europe, and there’s literally between 2 and 3 thousand people playing at the same time on a regular Monday evening. 

#2

Having Official Blizzard-Supported Hardcore Servers would make it way more appealing to everyone. First, you would have way fewer grievers, like playing on the current Classic Era Servers, there’ are a lot of grievers, because they can level to level 60 and just grieve anyone else playing Hardcore, without playing Hardcore themselves. 

If we’re on an official hardcore server, grieving will be a lot more risky and a lot more difficult, because first of all the grievers have to level themselves up in a hardcore environment, and then if they decide to grief, they actually have more risk involved because they are playing hardcore themselves. 

Less grieving equals to more fun gameplay and more appealing to quite literally everyone. Right now, playing on Classic Era, you have to deal with some people playing Hardcore, and some people not playing Hardcore, and it’s actually quite messy. 

For example, if you as a non-hardcore player want to do a somewhat difficult quest or kill a named mob, and you try to group up with a hardcore player do the same thing, that hardcore player is literally not allowed to group up with you, which might cause you to get annoyed at the hardcore player because you’re killing the same mobs and could have helped each other, and if you don’t know he’s doing the hardcore challenge, he looks like a complete jackass, so it’s quite messy.

Related: WoW: What Blizzard Should Do To Make Season of Mastery 2 A Successful Launch?

#3

It makes it a lot more convenient & easy to try out. Right now, in order to play Hardcore, you first need to find out which serves the hardcore community is playing on, then you need to download a Hardcore addon. But if we had official hardcore servers, you eliminate having to find out which server to play because they’re already public, and we wouldn’t need the hardcore addon. 

And by the way, the Hardcore Addon has over 200,000 installs, so once again there’s obviously a demand for this.

Why Blizzard Haven’t Implemented Official Hardcore Servers?

Now, let’s think about the idea of Official Hardcore Servers from an objective point of view, and think about why Blizzard hasn’t implemented them yet, if there is such an obvious demand? Actually, it’s all about money. 

Blizzard is a company, they like making money. When they came out with Classic WoW, they tried to keep it as similar to Vanilla WoW as possible, which they said was a “love letter to their community”. 

But I will bet you right now: They always had the intention of coming out with the level 58 boost and the TBC Deluxe Editions for TBC Classic. Classic WoW was just them earning your trust, for then to profit from that trust later on, they 100% thought that through before even beginning to work on Classic WoW. 

My Opinion

So, let’s continue to Hardcore Servers. Here’s how I see it: 

Everyone that is currently playing Classic Hardcore, is playing on Classic Era. 99% of people that know what Classic Hardcore is, are currently playing on Classic Era. In essence, what this means is that 99% of people that would play on Official Hardcore Servers are already playing the game and are already giving Blizzard their monthly subscription revenue. 

Blizzard needs a financial incentive to make Official Hardcore Servers, and to be honest, I simply don’t think it is quite there yet. For the people that know about Classic Hardcore, it’s a fantastic idea, but then again, most of us are already paying & playing on Classic Era, why would Blizzard spend their time & resources on implementing new types of servers for us, when it’s obvious that we are still playing and having fun on the Classic Era Servers? 

In the long run, sure, it could bring more people back to Classic WoW by offering something new & fresh, and it has been successful for some other games in the past, but is the financial incentive really there right now? 

I really do think, and I’m not motivating anyone to do this, but I think in order to get Official Hardcore Servers anytime soon, we would quite literally have to organize a gamer strike or an era boycott to actually give Blizzard a financial incentive for these Hardcore Servers, because that way we are sending the message: “If you want our money, give us what we want”, while right now, we are giving them the money either way and begging them to pet us on the head and say “good boy”. 

Diving even deeper into the financial incentive hole, I can’t help but think: What would Official Hardcore Servers actually look like: Judging by how Classic WoW went, it started off great, really authentic & vanilla-like, at least in most ways, and then when the expansion came out, they capitalized by introducing boosts & deluxe editions. What if a potential Official Hardcore Server follows the same trend? 

They give us exactly what to ask for, in the beginning, but then they start adding random things to milk us for every penny we have, first we would get cosmetics which people would be somewhat okay with, then we would get mounts which again people would be somewhat okay with, but then imagine if they went the extra mile and offered Paid Resurrections? 

For Official Hardcore Servers, I want to say “Death = Delete”. But if you pay $50, you can resurrect your character and keep playing! Or maybe they would make like a Chronoboon Displacer item that costs $50 and allows you to travel 1 minute back in time. So if your character is ever about to die, you can use that item. Or, maybe they would introduce a Light of Elune type of item into the cash-shop, allowing anyone to bubble-hearth, essentially. 

This is just me speculating on how many ways Blizzard could potentially screw up these servers, but I really wanted to highlight the financial incentive aspect of this conversation, as it’s something that isn’t being talked about enough. As players, we care about having fun while playing the game. As a company, Blizzard cares about making money. When you want something to happen, you have to consider both these things.

As we get a little further into 2023, the more busy we’re going to be with RPGs. Last month had us flying upon hippogriff and broomstick in the magical world of Hogwarts Legacy, taking our top spot in February. This month, however, we are more into action titles with challenging souls like combat as well as turn-based gems to take on. This month we’re in for a hellishly good time. So, let’s get into the top RPGs of March 2023.

1. Honorable Mention: Diablo 4 (Open Beta)

It’s time to unleash hell. Diablo 4 won’t be releasing until June, but you can get a sneak peek of what live has in store for you this month. An early open beta will be held from March 17th until March 19th for those who have pre-purchased the game.

Then there’s an open beta for everyone else from March 24th until the 26th. The open beta contains the prologue and the whole of act one. This means players can explore the first area of Fractured Peaks. there will be some limitations though, so your character progress will only be able to go to level 25.

Once you cap, you can still go ahead and hunt down demons to your heart’s content, but you won’t be able to level more than this. The beta will include dungeons quests and, of course, plenty of loot.

In case you missed it, Diablo 4 is the next upcoming action JRPG in the series taking place many years after the events of Diablo 3. Sanctuary is slowly rebuilding, but all threats loom in the land itself.

Related: What You Need To Know About Diablo IV End Game Modes?

Lilith, the daughter of Mephisto, is closing her grip on the inhabitants, leaving them in despair. Taking out the mantle of one of the five classes, players will hack and slash their way through dungeons, demons and more. Explore the world of Sanctuary upon horseback and even eventually take part in PVP.

While Lilith readies her army for June, you can join the beta this march on PC, Xbox series, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. If you are worrying about Diablo 4 Gold, or you want read more guides about this game, then take a look at IGGM.com.

2. The Legend Of Heroes: Trails To Azure

The Legend Of Heroes: Trails To Azure is the first official in the English version to be released on modern platforms. This JRPG entry is set just a few months after the events of the Trails from Zero, concerning the political complications of the Samurai content.

While Crossbell as well as the Special Support Section seem to be at peace now, it’s only a temporary situation. Tensions are rising between the Erebonian Empire and the Republic of Calvard.

Lloyd, the main character of the story and his group of rag-tag allies must prepare themselves for the trouble ahead by gearing up. This is the finale to the Crossbell arc within the Trail Universe.

In Trails of Physio, players will be introduced to new combat features, such as burst, back, attack and the use of a customizable car. There’ll be the return of a few familiar faces from the Trails of Cold Steel series. The Special Support Section will have new members and new duties to master in turn-based battles.

Players can also import their saved data from the previous title Trails from Zero to have an enhanced experience with further event scenes and new scenes to enjoy. Saving data from Trails of Azure will give bonuses for the upcoming game.

Trails into Reverie, which releases later this year. The Legend Of Heroes: Trails To Azure heads to PC, PlayStation 4 and Switch on March 14th for North America and March 17th like EU.

3. Mato Anomalies

Mata Anomalies is an anime inspired RPG set in a bygone city and a more neo-futuristic parallel world. Investigating anomalies is your call to the city as you follow dual protagonist Doe and Gram. Grouping up with some unlikely companions in order to unnerve the mysteries in the city of Mato as detective Doe and by traveling through roofs as Exorcist Gram.

The game lets players explore dual worlds with Rifts that provide portals beyond space and time, but jumping between these worlds won’t be easy as there are plenty of enemies to fight.

Players can take up different weapons, skills and use the dual-talent system to enhance their characters. The health system is also shared across or teammates, suppliers will need to keep an eye on bouncing risk and reward in turn-based combat.

Another interesting feature is the use of mind hacking, which uses cards instead of weapons. You strategize the best way to use action points and cards per turn, with both offensive and defensive cards to use.

If you like the idea of a persona-esque title with a more detective edge, then this could very well be likely up your alley. Mato Anomalies will be released on PlayStation 5, Xbox series, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch and PC on March 10th.

4. Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & The Secret Key

Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & The Secret Key is the concluding part of a trilogy of games from the Japanese developer Gust.

The RPG follows Alchemist rise actually unlocks powerful keys that grant her advanced alchemical abilities. In the third and final installment, players will follow her adventure as she discovers the secret hideout, interacts with secret fairies and obtains ancient keys that influence her potent Alchemy.

Happy Island has been suddenly abruptly interrupted for Ryza and her friends on the kirkmen island. Seemingly out of nowhere, a new group of islands spring forth from the ocean. Instead of having extensive areas connected by pathways and loading screens found in previous titles, this one has an open world we explore. This will allow seamless exploration that will include no loading screens whatsoever.

Ryza can now run or ride through various areas without interruption. Freedom is the name of the game here and there will be tons to see. There are a total of four major regions in Atelier Ryza 3 and each will have its own distinct look and feel. Meet a total of 10 companions. You can choose from bringing the playable character, account up to 11, including Ryza herself.

This number in itself is a high point for the series as no other game has had a roster this large before. Combat involves real-time tactical battles with up to five members in the party. Using keys will help boost a character for a limited time, reducing waiting time and letting you use skills and other attacks one after the other.

Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & The Secret Key will rise on March 24th to PC, Switch, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.

5. Bleak Faith: Forsaken

This one has been a while in the making. Finally getting its launch this month is a crowdfunded indie title, Bleak Faith: Forsaken.

It’s a mix of sci-fi with Dark Fantasy is an intriguing one for souls fans.

In Bleak Faith: Forsaken, players must tread through a relentless world referred to as the Omnistructure. This harsh Omniverse is filled with treacherous terrain and menacing monsters to prepare for an adventure full of intense combat and soaring boss battles.

Leap, run and climb through the apocalyptic ruins of what was once a plentiful land. Taking on the role of the last of humanity’s protectors, the Forsaken. Fighting to preserve the ancient remnants from their extinction.

But just how much of humanity is left to save? As you would expect from a soulslike. The combat will be challenging inspired by brutal combat systems. Its class and perk systems draw inspiration from the likes of the Dragon Age series. It blinks Bleak Faith: Forsaken. You aren’t alone in the Wasteland as creatures and adversaries or wait around every corner.

The enemies are what you’d expect from the game with a bleak in the title with a bloodborne-esque horror of kind of feel will with a Sci-Fi edge. Bleak Faith: Forsaken will be making its debut on PC on March 10thn. PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions are planned, but will come at a later date. This is a highly anticipated RPG not just for this month of March, but also for 2023.

6. Wo Long Fallen Dynasty

Wo Long Fallen Dynasty centers around the Three Kingdoms period of the later Han Dynasty. This period is fraught with power struggles and conflict, providing a fitting foundation for an intense combat game.

During inspiration not only from history but also fantasy, players will be battling against hordes of supernatural monsters that are plaguing the dynasty. Take on the role of a malicious soldier committed to fight the Yellow Turban Rebellion. The game, just like the developers’ previous franchise, Neo sets to have plenty of mythical and fantasy elements to it with some brutal sword slashing to get you excited.

Instead of a traditional character leveling system, the morale system will determine the character’s success in combat. Defeating more enemies will raise your ranks. Enemies with higher role rank will mean faster progression, making facing off against or challenging enemies much more rewarding.

Related: Wo Long Fallen Dynasty: A Complete Guide For Zhang Liang Boss Fight

But you don’t have to go to loan as NPC characters will be recruitable and you can also play alongside friends and Co-op. Combat is set to be fast-paced using both Wizardry Spells and Martial Arts to engage in fights against enemies. The use of the spirit gauge determines when you can block or dodge, but spamming attacks will empty that gauge meaning keeping an eye on your moves in order to empower your Martial Arts.

There is a range of fantasy elements and action gameplay, which will be loved by both Neo and Ninja Gaiden fans. Wo Long Fallen Dynasty will be released on PlayStation 5, Xbox series X and S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox game pass and PC on March 3rd. If you're looking for Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty GQ, check out IGGM.com.