OwnedCore Report #79 - Top E3 Announcements >Sponsored by Eldorado<

**Kenneth** · 06-16-2019

Welcome to the 79th Report. This week we are going over the top 5 announcements from E3, big update to Classic WoW's beta, and talking about how Valve made a power move recently in the Auto Chess race. On top of this we have clips of the week.

Make sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for updates to OC, sharing our hottest threads, and great memes.

This OwnedCore Report is Sponsored by Eldorado

The team behind Eldorado started trading almost 10 years ago. Since then we have bought and sold billions in in-game gold and millions of items in RuneScape, Path of Exile, World of Warcraft, Rocket League, CS:GO, and more. As buyers, sellers and gamers, we have seen it all, from honest-to-goodness dealers to scam victims with zero customer support. Harnessing years of experience and love for the market, and with a strong belief that together we can revolutionise in-game trading, we set out to build what Eldorado is today — a secure, easy-to-use marketplace with sterling support that empowers both sides of the trading community.

Eldorado Deals

Register on Eldorado using code OWNEDCORE and receive $5 for free!

Gaming News from Around the Globe

Top 5 Announcements from E3 2019

Baldur's Gate 3

Baldur's Gate is an RPG, developed by BioWare, that hasn't had a proper sequel since its 2nd installation in the year 2000. To some Baldur's Gate 2 is what Diablo 2 is for ARPG's. An iconic game that changed the genre and can never be replaced. A 3rd Baldur's Gate has been something many of the franchises fans have longed for but never received, until now. It was leaked before E3 but confirmed at E3 that Baldur's Gate 3 is in fact coming and with it a change in development. This time the developer Larian Studios, the same company that makes Dinivity: Original Sin, will be taking on the task. In an interview with one of the leads at Larian Studios they mention that Baldur's Gate 3 is so big that they had to triple the studio size (talking about employees) to work on it. Many people love that Larian Studios is the one behind the wheel simply because they haven't really made a bad game yet and if you're into RPG's Divinity: Original Sin is definitely top tier. The Dungeon and Dragons-esque game has no release date yet but most are guessing 2nd half 2020.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake

Scheduled to release on PS4 in March 2020, Final Fantasy 7's remake looks to be absolutely fantastic. I know putting a remake in a top 5 announcements is not going to go by well for some but this is an iconic game that many agree is the best installment in the whole Final Fantasy franchise. Square Enix showed us tons of new footage including the new combat, gameplay, bosses, combos, and more. This version will be real-time combat but will have some sort of slow motion tactical mode where you can pick a move to go next from a command menu. All in all this is a hype announcement and a must buy if you own a PS4 and are into Final Fantasy.

Halo Infinite

Oh Halo, how much I have missed you. Coming in late 2020 is the iconic franchise many of us fell in love with 10+ years ago. Master Chief is back and better than ever. Sadly there is no PC confirmation for the new Halo but rather it will be a launch title for the new Xbox console, Xbox Project Scarlett. To me this was a major let down because all the old Halo's have been confirmed to be coming to PC over the next couple years one by one and personally I think some of them, Halo 3 in particular, are going to blow up with a new PC audience. FPS is on this insane rise the last couple years and so are Esports and nothing combines those two things together better than the competitive style of Halo. If this new one came out on PC as well I could totally see it being a top 3 Esport within a year of its release if backed properly by Microsoft. Either way, it's great to see Halo back even if it's not a Bungie version of the game.

Borderlands 3

This was leaked or teased about a month ago but nevertheless it was hype to see the newest installation of Borderlands. Coming this September for both PC, Xbox, and Ps4 Borderlands 3 is by far one of the most anticipated games of the year. There are 4 new Vault Hunters, new foes, and the villainous Valypso Twins. Borderlands the series is a staple when it comes to the shoot and loot genre. Waves of enemies, huge variety of guns, and unique customization make the Borderland games iconic. If you enjoyed any past Borderlands this is a must buy and if you're into shoot and loot style games I strongly suggest scooping Borderlands 1 and 2 on Steam during a sale (which is often) for like under $10 for both. If you enjoy those then Borderlands 3 will definitely be on your wish list.

Elden Ring

We talked about this being a possibility in a past Report. George R. R. Martin posted in his personal blog how he was working with a Japanese based video game company and a lot of people speculated from this that it would be From Software. What most of us got wrong with the theories was that the consensus was it would be a Game of Thrones themed Dark Souls game but what we got instead was Elden Ring. Elden Ring is the next game from Hidetaka Miyazaki and the reveal trailer is super mysterious. There is a blacksmith forging an item, warriors, cool armor and interesting narration. We can't tell too much from the trailer alone but what we can tell you is it is not Game of Thrones but a completely new world and story. There is no release date but it is confirmed to be coming to PC, Xbox One, and PS4.

Alterac Valley

Blizzard keeps on surprising the participants lucky enough to be in the Classic WoW beta. This weekend they added an Alterac Valley only server in which you can make a level 58 character who has gear setup for them and test out the 1.12 version of AV. A couple things came from this that was pretty interesting.

One, the queue times seemed good comparing them to Arathi Basin when that was out (maybe because people spent too much time gearing for AB where as this was preset gear and you couldn't leave the capital city?)

Two, 1.12 AV kind of blows. It was just a turtle and a ton of the AV's lasted upwards of 10 hours. I know people say they miss leaving an AV, coming home from work, and rejoining the same one. But good god does it feel awful. I personally can't wait to avoid AV at all costs on Classic based on what I am seeing. After watching about 3 I had my fill.

Three, I get the feeling that Beta is coming to an end soon. We have level 40 testing, level 58 testing, I truly don't think they'll do 60 for the same reason they didn't do 60 for AV and chose 58. In my opinion, get your fill on Classic now while streams are out because I think its shutting down within the next 3 weeks. Just a hunch though.

Dota Underlords

The race for the top Auto Chess game is officially on. I talked about how this would blow up in past Reports and that this genre will be super competitive in the near future and now we have it. Let me catch you up first.

Auto Chess is a mod made by a Chinese company called Drodo. The mod is on Dota 2's client and has been insanely popular over the last 3-4 months with an average player count of over 150,000 and peaks near 500,000. This would put it easily as a top 5 Steam game consistently if it was stand-alone. Obviously developers of many gaming companies saw this as an opportunity because not only was it a simple game to make but it was very easy to make money off it with MTX. Drodo decided to make a stand-alone but on mobile and it turns out that Valve tried working with them on a stand-alone project but they could not come to an agreement. This would set back Valve more than they probably realized because right after they announced how they couldn't come to an agreement with Drodo, Riot announces it will be coming out with their own version of Auto Chess.

This was not good for Valve as Riot states they will have a working game on their client including a Ranked system and customization all by the end of June. Riot is Valves biggest competitor in the moba scene being the owners of League of Legends. Not only this but Valve had a screenshot of their Dota Chess stand-alone leak and it looked kinda bad because most of it was temporary and not meant for the public eye. On top of this Drodo announces it will launch a PC stand-alone version of the mobile version they made on Epic Games launcher. So now Valve is probably sweating bullets because this whole thing started on their client, they had the upper hand to get on top of the Auto Chess tree but they took so long it almost screwed them. Ironic because Dota 2 started as a moba that Blizzard never took advantage of on Warcraft 3 as a mod.

Fast forward to two days ago and Valve announces Dota Underlords, a stand-alone Auto Chess that is in beta....now. All you have to do is own the Dota 2 Battle Pass to play it and tomorrow it will be open beta for anybody to play. This was huge. Everybody assumed Riot would get their version out first since we're halfway through June and theirs was planned for release at the end of the month. No way Valve was going to go from no announcement to open Beta before Riot. Turns out Valve didn't want to wait for TI9 to make an announcement and just dropped their game on us hot.

This is huge because we haven't seen Valve make a power developer play like this in YEARS. Usually Valve of today is very slow in all game development so to see this old-Valve kind of come back was interesting to see. Now on top of this huge release we got a ton of information about what is to come in Valve's Auto Chess that seems insanely promising. According to Valve News Network on Youtube we can expect to see

Ranked Mode

Seasons

A Battle Pass

Mobile version that allows you to go back and forth from PC and Mobile MID game seamlessly. (this is HUGE)

Offline mode (not sure what this is yet, possibly vs. AI or PvE mode?)

In-Game tournaments

All of these are like the perfect things to say when talking about what to add to a game like Auto Chess. The Mobile and PC compatibility is going to be insane if it works as they say it will. One thing I will say though is that the current UI of Dota Underlords is very scuffed looking, cluttered, and mobile-like. A lot of people have complained about it already but the consensus seems to be it would have been more desktop looking but they had to rush it out super unfinished to get it out before League of Legends version later this month (which the rumor is their version isn't so polished either).

Is that it? Are we officially in the race to see who wins the Auto Chess crown? I don't think so but I know so. Scarra, a former League of Legends pro had this to say about it .

"At the very minimum there are 3-5 AAA companies working on their own version of Auto Chess right now"

I think the reason this is becoming such a race is because not only is this game super popular on PC but its the mobile audience. This game has such a great chance to rake in a ton of microtransactions on mobile with cosmetics and as a lot of us know, mobile is sadly taking the forefront for a ton of development companies because of that cash flow.

Do you play Auto Chess? If so what do you think about all this news?

Clips of the Week