The winners are here

05/03/2021

Which Outriders class should you choose?
When it comes to the four available Outriders classes, you're going to want to choose carefully. Not only because you'll still want to find each 'path' nuanced enough and fun to play after 40 hours of campaign story before you get to the endgame, but your inhospitable new home of Enoch means you'll need some powerful abilities to ensure your survival.

After a long-ish prologue in the surprisingly beefy Outriders demo, you'll have the chance to pick one of your classes, of which suit different playstyles and squad sizes. If you want to try them out before the demo ends, you can make new characters that follow the path you're looking for and skip the prologue each time, which is nice. Your progress from the demo will carry over to the main game, too.

So, which Outriders class is best for you? Here's an introduction to each path in the game, so you can make the right choice in the demo or get a head start when the full game arrives next month.

05/03/2021

Eurogamer editor Wesley Yin-Poole shared the experience on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1366158015460687878Clips like this are often used to camouflage level loading (never forget that Mass Effect elevator), and to an extent that's the case here as well. But creative director Bartek Kmita explained to Eurogamer that the system is also used to bring co-op players together when they're moving from one area to another.

Outriders initially used a simple fade-in, fade-out during area transitions, but People Can Fly made the change after playtesters complained that they weren't aware of what was happening or where they were going when one of their partners triggered a move to a new area. Playing a brief video when moving between areas ensures that everyone is aware of where the team is headed.

"A good example is opening the door," Kmita said. "That was only because people in playtests said, 'Oh, where am I? Why was I teleported?' So we needed to have these cutscenes."

Kmita acknowledged that "it's not the best" solution, but said that letting players move between areas independently wasn't a practical option because the lack of dedicated servers means that doing so would require splitting players into separate games.

"Because everyone needs to compute the AI and everything on their machine, we would have had to split the party," he explained. "I would like to have the door opening animation for two seconds, but still playing together with my friends, than just breaking apart through transmission. So we chose this solution."

As for why it's necessary to sit through all those same cutscenes when playing Outriders solo, Kmita said that the background loading is "really intense," and that the studio "just needed that solution to stream everything, to prepare the next arenas." He also suggested that there's not a whole lot of room to refine the system, saying, "We will try to look at this, but I can't promise a huge improvement can be done."

Outriders is set to launch on April 1, but the demo is available now on Steam. I spent several hours with it over the weekend and enjoyed it more than I expected to: I encountered a fairly common crash error (and the suggested fixes in this Reddit thread unfortunately did not help) but the mix of gunplay and powers (and exploding skulls) made for some very satisfying action, and even though the setup is thoroughly hackneyed, there are elements that have me honestly curious about where the whole thing is headed.

“Not sure I need a cutscene for that jump, Outriders https://t.co/djZ25EyHhO”

05/03/2021

Outriders developers explain why a tiny cutscene plays every time you open a door
If you've been playing the Outriders demo, you've likely noticed that there are a lot of little cutscenes that play whenever you transition from one area to another. Opening a door? Cutscene. Climbing up a ledge? Cutscene. Jumping over a chasm? Cutscene. And it's not just a quick flash, either: It's a full process of fading to black, playing a brief video clip, then fading back to the game. The videos don't even preserve the custom headgear you're wearing. It's jarring.

05/03/2021

Thousands of World of Warcraft Classic players are starting over from scratch
More than 1300 World of Warcraft players are preparing to depart on a "fresh" Classic experience in anticipation of the upcoming Burning Crusade expansion.

As reported by Eurogamer, the community project, dubbed The Fresh Crusade, will see players create new characters on a low population server to "reboot" the WoW Classic experience, which has been fraught with botting issues and an inflated economy across multiple realms.

The two issues go hand in hand, with botting leading to real money transactions (RMT), which directly leads to an inflated in-game economy. While the issue persists across all of WoW Classic, it's more prevalent on higher population servers, hence The Fresh Crusade's plans to migrate to a quieter realm.

Caszhar, the brainchild behind the project, told Eurogamer "with all of us starting together, the economy will be more of an even playing ground compared to the higher/mid-size population servers."

The event is due to go live on March 5 at 7 pm server time, and will take place on a yet-to-be-determined European realm. Caszhar says on the community Discord that they hope to have enough players to split into both Alliance and Horde. There are already seven guilds getting involved, and Caszhar hopes that they'll hit 2000 players by the time Friday rolls around.

It's a super wholesome idea, one rooted in the desire to make sure new or returning players don't feel left behind by high-level characters or pushed out of the ever-increasing economy. Caszhar said that "the support from people joining has been heart-warming to see," and that "people are really excited to start on Friday."

You can get involved over on The Fresh Crusade's Discord server. The Burning Crusade Classic doesn't have a firm release date yet, but is coming sometime this year, with Blizzard saying the beta will be starting very soon.

05/03/2021

Behold, the greatest World of Warcraft cosplay ever
If there was one huge downside to BlizzCon 2021 being entirely online, it was that thousands of fans didn't get to experience the distinct joy of walking through the Anaheim Convention Center surrounded by some incredible cosplay. But even though the show was digital-only, Blizzard still held its traditional cosplay contest, and this year's winner wasn't just the best cosplay at the show—I'm pretty sure this is the most impressive cosplay I've ever seen.

You can see a video of the cosplay above, which is of Bolvar Fordragon, a Warcraft paladin with some very dry skin. He's one of the central characters in the new Shadowlands expansion and most well-known for sitting on the Frozen Throne after players finally killed Arthas, the Lich King, in Wrath of the Lich King. Here's a screenshot of Bolvar as he appears in game, and here's one of Blizzard's official art renderings of him just so you can compare.

Hartigan, the mastermind behind this costume, did an incredible job capturing all of the little details, like the smoldering flames that lace Bolvar's skin. Hell, the costume even puffs out wisps of smoke. That's nuts.

Over on Hartigan's YouTube channel, he explains that the costume takes 12 minutes to assemble and required 26 days (638 hours) to create. The muscle suit, armor, and hammer are all made with EVA foam, foam clay, upholstery foam, and latex and LEDs for the fiery glow. The end result is astounding—I was convinced the smoke was just a special effect added in post and not, y'know, real smoke.

I could gush about how good this cosplay is all day but I think you just have to see it for yourself. If you want, Hartigan's Twitter account has a lot more details and videos of the costume.

05/03/2021

Behold, the greatest World of Warcraft cosplay ever
https://youtu.be/RKHojXG8Dfw

Here is how i became The Highlord Bolvar Fordragon!The dress up in real life take around 12 minutes.The costume took me more or less 638h30 to craft, and I'v...

05/03/2021