Like Diablo? Like Warcraft? Then get excited for Dungeons II

Remember how Azmodan kept appearing to taunt you all through Act III of Diablo III but instead ended up telling you all of his plans?  His bravado and overconfidence were a big part of his undoing, and he's not alone.  Your standard villain will almost always trip themselves up at the finish line and the hero capitalizes on it to save the day.  When you're on the verge of completing your grand plan for world domination or ultimate power, one would think you would be damn careful at such a critical juncture.  There will be plenty of time to gloat later when they're all your  unwilling minions.  Did you ever catch yourself thinking "if it had been me things would have gone differently..."  Well, developer Realmforge Studios is giving you your chance to prove it with Dungeons II.

Heroes of the Storm Closed Beta is live - so let's talk about the release date

New heroes and villains will be joining the Nexus in the Closed Beta and beyond.

So Heroes of the Storm is officially out of Alpha and has begun its Closed Beta testing, which with most games is usually the point at which the community starts getting its first good look at them pre-release.  However, with most games the community isn't actively participating in the testing phase usually exclusive to developers.  The Technical Alpha for Heroes has been going on since March 2014, so the start of the Closed Beta is a slightly different milestone in the development timeline than in previous Blizzard projects.  However, even if we don't have a one to one comparison, from looking at other games we may be able to predict a window for the game's release date before a company rep decides to grace us with something more specific than "when it's ready."

Throwback Thursday: The retro trend of Heroes of the Storm's Warcraft characters

For the last several years, the Warcraft franchise has become almost synonymous with World of Warcraft.  The other day, a friend of mine commented that Hearthstone wasn't so much "Heroes of Warcraft" as it was simply "Heroes of WoW".  It's true that Hearthstone currently draws on elements from WoW more than any of the other Warcraft games, and that the MMORPG will likely remain the defining aspect of the franchise.

However, a recent pattern in Heroes of the Storm implies that Blizzard is making an effort to hearken back to the Warcraft that many of its older fans remember.  So for the first post of 2015 (and first Throwback Thursday edition) let's take a look at how Blizzard is tacitly acknowledging that some of those Warcraft fans may not necessarily be World of Warcraft fans.