Warcraft III is making its triumphant return with Warcraft III: Reforged, and it feels so good to jump back in.
I had a chance to play Warcraft III: Reforged — a remaster of Blizzard’s indelible 2002 real-time strategy game — at BlizzCon, running through the Culling of Stratholme and being transported back to one of the most impressive stories to ever grace the genre.
The thing that immediately struck me when I started the Warcraft III: Reforged demo was the aesthetic. It’s probably been about 10 years since I last played what I consider to be my favorite RTS game, and Reforged manages to capture that old Warcraft III vibe while updating it to something that looks more modern.
Warcraft III: Reforged doesn’t take character models from World of Warcraft or try to mirror that game’s aesthetic. Instead, it keeps the exaggerated features seen in Warcraft but polishes them with much better detail and lighting.
You can see how the game has been transformed in the gameplay trailer:
After watching a cutscene where Arthas Menethil decides he’d rather kill the innocent citizens of Stratholme now than watch them be consumed by the Scourge, and seeing Uther Lightbringer and Jaina Proudmoore abandon him over this atrocious task, I jumped right in.
I haven’t played many RTS games in the past 10 years, just a few here and there (and usually not for very long) so it took a minute to get re-acquainted with the genre and start building up my army for the grisly task at hand.
Soon I was tearing through building after building, killing doomed citizens one after another while maintaining my base and keeping an eye on resources and soldiers.
Killing sick humans is not a noble task.
Image: blizzard entertainment
The Culling is a pivotal moment in the Warcraft series, showing the descent of Arthas and the fall of the human kingdom of Lordaeron. But it isn’t just a big plot point, it is a difficult mission that makes you question your morals and maybe do something that you’re not exactly comfortable with.
As the Dreadlord Mal’Ganis works his way through the infected city of Stratholme, converting humans into mindless, evil Scourge grunts, Arthas and his followers are trying to kill the humans before they turn. Uther and Jaina refused, showing just how inhumane Arthas’s decision is, but you still have to carry it out and destroy one of the biggest human cities on Azeroth.
The Warcraft III: Reforged demo at BlizzCon was just a tiny slice of the whole game, but it reminded me of what makes Warcraft III — a game that still holds up — such a successful title: The lore is deep and interesting, the stories are unparalleled, and the gameplay is fun and dynamic.
A terrible race toward death.
Image: blizzard entertainment
The rest of this remastered classic will be playable sometime in 2019 along with some of the other features that made Warcraft III so great: an improved map editor and the ability to create custom games.
Senate candidate Rep. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) rallied with other Democratic candidates on Friday, Nov. 2, 2018, in Las Vegas, where large crowds of voters lined up at early vote centers. | John Locher/AP Photo
President Donald Trump is keeping a frenetic schedule of rallies to shore up Senate Republicans.
Democrats entered the final weekend before Election Day with a head of steam in the fight for the House — emboldened by a pair of long-serving Republicans in solid conservative territory scrambling to save their seats.
President Donald Trump, who planned rallies Saturday in Montana and Florida, amplified his anti-immigration rhetoric in states where Republicans could win significant Senate and gubernatorial contests. Yet the message worried House Republicans looking to stanch losses in suburban districts, and even the president acknowledged the growing likelihood that Democrats will win the chamber.
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“It could happen, could happen,” Trump said at a rally Friday in West Virginia. “We’re doing very well, and we’re doing really well in the Senate, but could happen. And you know what you do? My whole life, you know what I say? ‘Don’t worry about it, I’ll just figure it out.’”
The brightening Democratic prospects were confirmed by late moves in red districts in Alaska and Iowa, where Reps. Don Young and Steve King faced surprising headwinds in the final days of their campaigns. The Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Republican leadership, mounted a last-minute get-out-the-vote initiative for Young, the House’s longest-serving member, and Democrats rushed to seize an opportunity in Iowa against King, whose anti-immigrant rhetoric has drawn scorn from both parties.
Trump’s frenetic schedule of campaign stops came as early voting closed in many states, with more than 31 million Americans already casting ballots, according to Michael McDonald’s United States Elections Project at the University of Florida.
Turnout exceeded early voting from the last midterm election in more than 25 states, though to whose benefit remains unclear. Reports of robust turnout among younger voters in Texas and California, and among black voters in the Southeast, could improve Democrats’ prospects on Tuesday, while Republicans were moving to run up their numbers in rural, red swaths of the country.
Democrats in Nevada were buoyed on Friday night by large crowds of voters lining up at early vote centers in Democrat-heavy Las Vegas, in a scene reminiscent of the last presidential election, in 2016. Addressing supporters in Nevada on Friday, Rep. Jacky Rosen, who is bidding to unseat Republican Sen. Dean Heller in a fiercely contested race, said, “I’m going to give you some real good news: We added 4,000 Democratic votes to our lead here in Clark County, I think pushing us up around the 38,000 firewall.” By late Friday, that number climbed past 40,000.
In Arizona’s hotly contested Senate race — a must-win for Democrats who are hoping to limit Trump’s hopes for GOP gains — Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) rallied her party Saturday morning by touting its “gangbusters” performance in early voting. Data on early voting released by the state indicates that Democrats have narrowed, although not eliminated, Republicans’ historically wide advantage this year.
Sinema also returned to her party’s bread-and-butter as Trump digs in on immigration: health care. She’s repeatedly reminded voters that her GOP opponent, Rep. Martha McSally, supported a House Obamacare repeal bill that would have gutted protections for those with preexisting conditions.
“I have been fighting so hard” to preserve popular elements of Obamacare, Sinema told backers at a Phoenix community center, “but they are at risk” given the repeated GOP attempts to chip away at the health care law.
But Democratic and Republican strategists alike entered Saturday uncertain about the implications of the early vote.
“Is there going to be a blue wave? Yes. Is there going to be a red wave? Yes. What does that mean? I don’t know,” said Mike Madrid, a longtime Republican consultant in California.
Still, Madrid acknowledged the possibility that Democrats surpass expectations on Tuesday – picking up seats in the Senate or gaining a larger than expected majority in the House – with dramatic implications for the long-term health of the GOP.
If Democrats can prevail in suburban, Republican-held House districts that went for Hillary Clinton in 2016, he said, “That’s going to be a really tectonic shift in American politics, because it means there’s a hemorrhaging in the Republican base … If they know what’s at stake and they say, ‘Fine, give Nancy Pelosi [speaker’s] gavel, that’s a huge break in the coalition.”
Pelosi (D-Calif.) has already declared victory, saying on “The Late Show” with Stephen Colbert this week that “We will win.” But many Democrats remain uneasy, in part because of flawed projections that left them dumfounded following Trump’s election in 2016.
Tom Steyer, the billionaire environmentalist and Democratic megadonor, urged Democratic activists on Friday to “sprint through the tape,” while Andrew Feldman, a Democratic strategist in Washington, said Democrats “can’t take the foot off the gas.”
Just days before the election, both parties sought to gain an edge in critical races by boosting third party candidates. In Indiana, the state Democratic Party ran Facebook ads aimed at conservative voters attacking Republican Senate candidate Mike Braun for his past as a registered Democrat and calling the libertarian candidate the “true anti-tax conservative.” And the Arizona Republican Party sent mailers tying Green Party candidate Angela Green to Sen. Bernie Sanders, calling the two “too extreme” for Arizona in the hopes of pushing some liberal voters towards her rather than Sinema. (Green dropped out of the race on Tuesday and endorsed Sinema.)
Republicans received an election-eve gift Friday with the release of a report showing 250,000 jobs gained in October. But Trump, ignoring the pleas of Republicans to focus on the economy in his midterm messaging, said at a rally Friday that “sometimes it’s not as exciting to talk about the economy … because we have a lot of other things to talk about.”
Instead, in an effort to turn out base voters, Trump has kept his closing argument largely focused on immigration, warning Friday of “illegal aliens trying to flood into our country on your dollar.”
The Trump administration this week approved sending more than 5,000 U.S. troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to stop a caravan of Central American asylum seekers heading toward the United States. And Trump said he wants to eliminate birthright citizenship, a move most legal scholars say would be impossible without a constitutional amendment, but that Trump says he thinks is possible with an executive order.
Democrats, while lambasting Trump on immigration, are focusing heavily on health care — and specifically on Republicans’ efforts to rescind Obamacare, and with it the law’s provisions protecting people with pre-existing conditions.
Campaigning alongside Rosen in Nevada, Sen. Kamala Harris, a California Democrat who is likely to run for president in 2020, said, “As far as I’m concerned, anyone who wants to vote to get rid of our health care should be voted out of office.” And later that day in Georgia, where Democrat Stacey Abrams and Republican Brian Kemp are locked in a close race for governor, former President Barack Obama lashed out at Republicans on the issue.
“Not only will they not own up to what they have done,” Obama said. “Suddenly they are saying that they’re the ones to protect people with preexisting conditions. I want everyone to pay attention to this. They have literally been doing the opposite. It’s like calling black, white. It requires some kind of gumption.”
Speaking to Abrams supporters in Atlanta this morning, former Attorney General Eric Holder echoed Obama’s sentiment about the urgency of Tuesday’s election, saying, “You always say midterms are important and they are. This one really is the most important midterm. We have to send a message.”
Obama and lower-profile Democratic surrogates have fanned out across the country in recent days to counter Trump’s frenzied schedule of appearances. Harris, returning home to California and its contested House districts today, accompanied Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is poised to become California’s next governor, on a final weekend of campaigning in four Republican-held congressional districts. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), was expected to join weekend calls urging Democrats to vote.
In generic congressional polls, Democrats’ advantage has remained relatively steady, at about 7.5 percent, according to the RealClearPolitics average.
But Paul Maslin, a top Democratic pollster, said Trump’s inability to “sell the economy” combined with his anti-immigration pronouncements and reaction to the bomb scare and synagogue shooting “at least temporarily seems to have swung the thing at least a couple of points in our direction.”
“Is it possible that the still-enthusiastic Trump voter will still turn out and balance out the intensely negative anti-Trump voter? Yeah, that’s possible, Maslin said. “But it’s more likely that he’s never recovered from the damage he did to himself.”
“You could have a two or three percent swing,” Maslin said. “And if it happens in enough places in the end, among independents and women and suburban voters who just say, ‘Enough is enough’ … If that happens in many places, then this could be a very good, a very good political night.”
Still, Maslin said, “I still think we’re in a mess on Nov. 7,” with a fractured political climate that “is not going to be any prettier.”
“We may have a very good night next Tuesday, and so what?” he said. “That doesn’t answer any real question other than Trump’s failed pretty spectacularly in his first two years, and we’ll see what he does as a result.”
Reporting from Siders in Nevada and California, Schor in Arizona, Strauss in Georgia, Marinucci in California and Arkin in Washington, D.C.
Seven months after a fatal crash involving a self-driving car in Arizona, Uber says it’s ready to get its self-driving cars up and running again.
The company released a new safety report as it asked the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for permission to start testing its self-driving vehicles on public roads in Pennsylvania.
In the report, Uber detailed a series of safety changes made following the fatal crash in March. The company says it will now place two human operators in each self-driving vehicle, one to sit behind the wheel, and another to monitor the system from the passenger seat.
“We are deeply regretful for the crash in Tempe, Arizona, this March,” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi wrote in a blog post. “In the months since, we have undertaken a top-to-bottom review of ATG’s safety approaches, system development, and culture.
“We have taken a measured, phased approach to returning to on-road testing, starting first with manual driving in Pittsburgh. We committed to deliver this safety report before returning to on-road testing in self-driving mode, and will go back on the road only when we’ve implemented improved processes.”
If Uber wins approval, it will be the first time the company has been able to start testing its self-driving cars on public roads since the fatal crash in March. (The company previously got approval to get the vehicles back on the road in Pittsburgh, but only in “manual mode,” in which they’re driven just like any other car.) The crash, which happened in Tempe, Arizona, raised a number of concerns about the reliability of Uber’s self-driving cars.
Investigators found that the car’s system didn’t alert the driver about the pedestrian in the road, even though its sensors had detected her. And the car didn’t slow down or brake after the woman was detected. The driver, who was supposed to be monitoring the road, was also later found to be watching Hulu at the time of the crash.
Proving that even Halloween isn’t immune from the political division our country is currently embroiled in, an Idaho school district has issued an apology after it faced stiff backlash to pictures of staffers in pro-Trump, anti-Immigrant costumes for the holiday.
In one photo, several staffers are lined up forming a brick wall with Trump’s famous “Make America Great Again” phrase displayed, a reference to Trump’s long-promised border wall. Another photo featured several staffers dressed in sombreros, ponchos, and fake exaggerated mustaches, a racist stereotype of Mexicans.
A group of faculty at a Middleton, Idaho school are under fire after dressing up together as a border wall with the sign, “Make America Great Again” attached. Other faculty dressed up in stereotypical Mexican clothing pic.twitter.com/gZwGBkGdKA
The photos were originally posted to the school district’s Facebook page, according to the New York Times, and were later deleted. But not before they began making the rounds all across social media, sparking debate and outrage.
So there are 13 individual people, presumably all Middleton School District employees, in these photos. And none of them thought this might be a bad idea? pic.twitter.com/eilNXWA7QM
Middleton County, Idaho is roughly 90% white with a 10% Latino minority making up the overwhelming majority of its nonwhite population.
Let’s be clear: This isn’t like “A cowboy costume is offensive to Indigenous student – it’s like dressing as the sprite from Custer’s Revenge” https://t.co/Rj2ngqFI7O
Another day, another racist costume. This is from Middletown School District in Idaho. Please call (208) 585-3027 to say 1) racism is unacceptable 2) they are creating and promoting a hostile learning environment to children 3) what is their plan to make it right? pic.twitter.com/DqUwvP3ROL
On Saturday, Middleton School District Superintendent Josh Middleton announced that the staff members identified in the photos have been placed on administrative leave. Supt. Middleton had also previously offered an apology on the district’s Facebook page, but that video is no longer available as the district’s entire page has been deleted.
The Idaho Statesman, though, grabbed a capture of the video.
In the video, Middleton says, “Do I think there was a malicious intent in this poor decision? No, I don’t,” he said. “Was there a poor judgment involved?”
He later adds, “We are better than this. We embrace all students. We have a responsibility to teach and reach all students — period.”
While the costumes would be troubling under any circumstances, the kerfuffle comes at a particularly incendiary time as, ahead of the midterm elections, President Trump has suggested trying to use an executive order to overrule protection of birthright citizenships as protected by the 14th Amendment and has ratcheted up anti-immigration fear-mongering over a caravan of migrants heading for the U.S. border.
The controversy also follows a blow-up around Megyn Kelly’s complete ineptness when it comes to the racist overtones of white people wearing blackface as part of a costume, proving that even as America creeps toward progress, some people seem hell-bent on staying rooted firmly in our country’s racist past.
US President Donald Trump teased his 55 million Twitter followers about his latest action against Iran in the style of a Hollywood movie poster – a picture of him with the words: Sanctions are Coming.
But Trump’s taunt wasn’t a joke, and it’s expected there will be real life consequences for millions of Iranians.
The strict economic and trade penalties come into effect on Monday.
The White House says the aim is to force Iran to abandon what it calls its “destructive” behaviour in the Middle East.
But the move has been condemned by Russia, China and many European allies. International investigators say Tehran is complying with the terms of the 2015 nuclear agreement.
As Trump keeps his promise to punish Iran, could the new tough measures end up hurting the Iranian people the most?
Presenter: Richelle Carey
Guests:
Francois Nicoullaud – former French ambassador to Iran
Mohammad Eslami – columnist and political researcher
This isOne Good Thing, a weekly column where we tell you about one of the few nice things that happened this week.
We already knew that Ally Maine’s Lady Gaga’s ability to fold shirts is unmatched, but did you also know that she has the greatest green thumb of all time?
Just look at the Chia Pet garden she cultivated this week. What makes this garden so special is that it’s made up entirely of her adorable French bulldogs, all dressed as Chia Pets for Halloween.
Gustave, Asia, Koji, and another unidentified doggo posed effortlessly for their mother’s camera, and the results would leave any seasoned supermodel quaking.
Can we also talk about the elaborate setup for this photoshoot? As someone who is desperate to own at least two Frenchies before the age of 30, I am always 1,000 percent here for a spooky doggy photoshoot.
The backdrop’s filled with greenery and pumpkins galore, and Gaga’s employed the hashtag #HappyPuppyween like the relatable dog mom she is. We stan.
Gaga even dressed as a Chia Pet herself to match her pups, as evidenced by a photo shared to her Instagram Stories.
Image: Lady Gaga / instagram
I hope Gaga’s pets got tons of treats this Halloween, considering how well they posed for the camera. They absolutely deserve it. This photoshoot gets a 14/10 on the spook-meter for “Puppyween,” and I can’t wait to see what look they’ll bring out for next year.
On Friday, Blizzard pulled the curtain on an ambitious new project from one of its most beloved series: Diablo Immortal, a mobile spin on Diablo. Fans were… furious?
In the wake of the announcement, an army of Blizzard fans materialized on social media to deride the exciting news of a brand new Diablo game — the first in six years. One especially graceless fan asked the developers, in person, if this was an early April Fool’s joke.
Mashable’s Kellen Beck zeroed in on the blowback after trying Diablo Immortal for himself at BlizzCon, the annual event where the reveal happened.
“Grow up,” Kellen wrote. “You are entitled to nothing. Game companies owe you nothing. You don’t just get to have whatever you want and then throw a tantrum when your own personal dreams don’t come true.”
Unfortunately, “throw a tantrum” is exactly what a bunch of fans did in the hours after the announcement. The dude that asked the “April Fool’s” question was crowned a “hero” by angry fans (his idiotic question also spawned a parody account aimed at making fun of gamer entitlement).
Here, have one tweet that I think embodies the ridiculousness of this latest gamer tantrum (not the tweet itself, obviously; the screencapped tweet inside the below tweet):
I’ll distill it all down here so we don’t have to venture any further into troll Twitter. Diablo 3, the last properly new game in the series, launched in 2012. It’s had a couple of (well-received, largely game-changing) expansion packs as well as a string of console releases, most recently for Switch. But 2012 is when the last truly new Diablo game launched.
Blizzard has a reputation for taking its time with releases. Where most studios and publishers paint themselves into a corner by announcing release dates way ahead of time, Blizzard is more careful. “When it’s done” is the common refrain that’s recited whenever someone asks about the next Diablo or StarCraft.
That said, six years is a long time in game development terms. Most big-ticket releases take three or four years to build and fans of Diablo are primed for a new game. There had been heavy expectation in the months leading to BlizzCon 2018 that a Diablo 4 reveal was coming.
Then Blizzard threw the cold water of reality on those hopes just a couple weeks before the big show. A blog post from the developer didn’t come out and say “No Diablo 4, sorry” explicitly, but it was pretty evidently aimed at tempering expectations.
A mobile version of Diablo might not be for every fan, but that’s OK. It doesn’t have to be.
“We appreciate your patience as our teams work tirelessly to create nightmarish experiences worthy of the Lord of Terror,” the post reads. “While we won’t be ready to announce all of our projects, we do intend to share some Diablo-related news with you at the show.”
That’s exactly what happened. There wasn’t a big Diablo 4 reveal. There was, however, a Diablo-related reveal. A cool mobile version of Diablo. It might not be for every fan, but that’s OK. It doesn’t have to be.
Unfortunately, lots of people who play video games don’t actually understand how they’re made. One common belief among Immortal haters is that Blizzard’s focus on the mobile game means Diablo 4 will take even longer to come out. They hate the mobile game not because of what it is, but because of what it means for what they really want.
Another “argument” you’ll see a lot of if you delve into the Blizzard trolling: No one asked for this mobile Diablo game. To which I say: So what?
Blizzard is a team of creators. The studio isn’t a sequel factory. It’s a business where creative-minded artists come together around the ideas that excite them. That process leads to the creation of worlds and franchises that beget other, related ideas.
Diablo Immortal is neat and surprising exactly because no one asked for it. It’s a new way to play Diablo. It might even introduce a whole bunch of new people to the series. That’s great news! More fans means more income for Blizzard. (More income pays for more resources and gives games a better shot at being amazing, to be clear.)
Fortunately, the social media noise is just that: Noise. Entitled gamers are a loud bunch, but they define the “vocal minority.” We see them most visibly when stuff like this comes up because they attack news they don’t like with an unhinged degree of passion, even when it’s an incomplete picture.
Diablo Immortal‘s reveal amounts to a pair of trailers: A cinematic look at the game’s story/world and a gameplay-centric look at what Immortal actually is. Two. Trailers. No one other than BlizzCon attendees who have tried the game firsthand really understands what this is yet. Angry fans are yelling at a concept, springing off their vague, incorrect idea of how game development works.
I started off writing this with the intent of sharing a look at how reactions to Diablo Immortal were playing out on social media. But I realized as I started unpacking my thoughts on all of this: There’s nothing new to this episode. We’ve been here before.
A segment of the Blizzard fan community is mad because of some stupid bullshit they’ve manufactured entirely out of their own ignorance. That “April Fool’s joke” guy was an asshole for asking that question. And if you’re holding that guy up as some kind of a hero, or even just attacking Blizzard for making something you’re not into, you’re an asshole too.
It’s been a while since we checked in on the race to land Amazon’s highly-coveted HQ2 but a new rumor reinforces the possibility that northern Virginia could be the place Jeff Bezos lands his corporate behemoth’s new home.
A report by the Washington Post (also owned by Bezos) on Saturday morning said that discussions have heated up around a location in Crystal City, Virginia, which is located across the Potomac from southern Washington, D.C. and nestled right next to Reagan International Airport.
One key hint, according to the Post, is that a Crystal City real estate developer has pulled listings from the market, possibly in anticipation of those locations being renovated to host the first wave of HQ2’s new employees.
This isn’t the first time the Arlington County area has come up as the front-runner for the new Amazon locale. Way back in February, curious web traffic surges from a private, internal Amazon source to a local story about the accolades Arlington Co. had received for environmentally-friendly building stoked excitement that the area was high up on Amazon’s list.
Crystal City’s proximity to D.C. — a 10-to-15 minute drive from the U.S. Capitol, per Google Maps — is also a big selling point and one that makes sense given Amazon’s size and Bezos’s efforts to garner Pentagon contracts for his Blue Origin space flight company.
Um. “Crystal City” is in northern Virginia, yes, but would be more accurate to say Amazon in advanced talks to put HQ2 in Washington, given that it is a Washington DC inner suburb. https://t.co/ToMdKMXl3a
Of the 20 locations shortlisted in the HQ2 sweepstakes, three are in the D.C. area: Northern Virginia, Montgomery County, Maryland, and D.C. itself. The only other finalists clustered together like that are New York City and Newark, NJ.
We should find out shortly where HQ2 will land. Bezos has previously said it would be announced by the end of 2018 and there’s less than two months left until the calendar flips over. So get ready but don’t be surprised when northern Virginia gets the Bezos stamp of approval.
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By Kellen Beck
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Nebraska Football 
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Daily Trends Hunter 