The World of Warcraft Forever beta has moved into its next phase. Blizzard's test has been rolling out in stages, and this week another stage arrived with a higher level cap, more zones, more talent points and a handful of new places to fight through.
For testers, that means more ground to cover and more to report back on. The new content is also the best look yet at how far this version of Azeroth will stretch beyond its earliest levels.
Level 30 and Familiar Ground
The headline change is the new level cap, which now sits at 30. That is a meaningful jump for anyone who has been stuck replaying the same low-level content, and Blizzard has opened up zones to match.
Team Liquid's time with Kamil "siuhy" Szkaradek is officially over.
According to Dust2.us, the organisation has released the Polish player into free agency. That ends a 16-month tenure on Liquid's Counter-Strike 2 roster that never delivered what either side hoped for. It isn't exactly a surprise. Liquid had already benched him in July and handed the in-game leader role to Johnny "JT" Theodosiou. This week's news simply makes that separation formal.
What the release doesn't do is solve anything. The report names no replacement, so Liquid now has an empty seat in its lineup and, for the moment, no public plan to fill it.
Brazilian Counter-Strike just lost two organisations in one go, and neither of them lost a match to get there.
LOUD and Keyd Stars have both stepped away from Counter-Strike 2 after Brazil's federal government moved against online betting. Their exits are the most visible part of a much wider shake-up. Teams, sponsors and even tournament series in one of CS2's most passionate regions are suddenly having to work out how to pay the bills without the betting money that has propped up so much of the scene.
Two exits, two very different stories
The two departures took different paths, but they ended in the same place.
Party Animals is three years old, and the birthday party is still going.
The game's anniversary technically passed last week, but not everyone made it to the celebrations on time. Massively OP's MJ, who hosts many of the site's livestreams, was too sick to join in when the candles were first lit. Rather than let the occasion slip by, she brought it to the outlet's stream schedule a little late. Massively OP is a long-running site that covers MMOs and other online games, and its "Stream Team" broadcasts are where its writers play those games live with their audience.
Aion 2 isn't even officially out yet, and NC is already handing out free stuff.
The free-to-play MMORPG is currently in early access, with its full launch set for October 5. To mark the occasion, NC has lined up a Twitch Drops campaign that runs until October 14. The idea is simple: watch other people play Aion 2 on Twitch, and you get items and cosmetics for your own account. No grinding or purchases are required. You just need a stream running in the background.
For anyone who has been following the game's rollout, from the Steam pre-download to the busy early access period, this is the next step in a launch window NC clearly wants to keep loud.
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