Watching Blizzard: Who's ready for Battle for Azeroth? (Patreon)

Hopefully you are, because Battle for Azeroth pre-orders have arrived to plenty of excitement (and more than a few bugs). Here’s what you need to know from today’s news.

Battle for Azeroth pre-orders are here

• You can grab it now for the usual $50 price tag, or $70 for the deluxe edition which comes with two mounts and a precious tiny Tortollan pet as well as an array of extras in other games. Buying it gives you immediate access to four of the six Allied Races and a 110 level boost.
• The expansion is due out “on or before September 21, 2018.”
• Not caught up on the expansion news? Here’s:
  • Everything we know for sure about Battle for Azeroth
  • Everything we know about Allied Races
  • Wowhead’s extremely thorough Allied Races guide
  • Tons of stuff from the beta, including new weapons models, new mounts and pets, and… well, there’s just a lot. If you want all the datamining, Wowhead is the place to check.
• Want more on the expansion? While there was a Q&A with Ion Hazzikostas today, it spent a lot of time talking about things that already knew about Battle for Azeroth — but there are still some gems of info worth reading. Wowhead also snagged an interview with Paul Kubit and Shani Edwards which is packed with expansion info.

Overwatch refused to be left out of today’s news-stravaganza

• Much-dreaded Mercy nerfs went live with today’s patch. For those who love Mercy, we’re sorry for your loss. For those who wanted to have more variety in support play, you may get your wish.
• Jeff Kaplan wants to address the “one trick” problem, but it’s not an easy fix. Still, the team is brainstorming ideas. That’s a good sign, right?

And Heroes of the Storm still exists, too

• Ho hum. This week’s rotations are pretty much the norm.
• But don’t forget about what’s coming up: Maiev and a Malthael rework are on the PTR, and the Lunar Festival starts next week.

For our $5 and up supporters

• Rossi has an op-ed about the multitude of people involved in shaping WoW’s story.

Whew. That’s about it for today’s news, but I would like to add that Russ Petersen agrees with me (and sane people everywhere) about Mitch’s terrible habit of adding non-standard characters to names. (In short: don’t.) 

Fortunately, reason prevailed.

And that's a wrap. We'll see you tomorrow!