The new and improved Developer Update Symmetra is now on the Overwatch PTR

 The new and improved Symmetra is now on the Overwatch PTR.

Update: We've got a breakdown of Symmetra's new abilities and other changes that you can dig into right here. 

Original story:

The Overwatch hero Symmetra is often viewed as "overly situational," game director Jeff Kaplan says in a new developer update video, meaning that while people enjoy playing her, she is often only used her to handle certain very specific tasks. She also suffers from "quality of life" issues, such as spending too much time waiting for cooldowns, which players often find frustrating. To address those shortcomings, Blizzard has put the character through a "redesign" that will have a big impact on how she's played.

The most exciting change on the way, Kaplan explains, is to her ultimate ability. Symmetra will soon be the first character in Overwatch to have a choice of ultimates: Once her ult meter has filled, she will have the option to deploy either her teleporter—which will continue to function as it does currently—or a shield generator, which "puts a very substantial shield—more than her old shield—on all of her teammates in a very big radius" that ignores line of sight.   

Symmetra's old shield has been replaced with a new ability called a "photon barrier." It functions similar to Reinhardt's shield, but is "projected on a track of movement," which Kaplan expects will encourage player aggression, particularly in situations where players may be hanging back. This also will hopefully supplement tanks such as Zarya and Roadhog, who don't have large, team-protecting barriers, in a way that makes Reinhardt feel less essential.

Symmetra is also now able to carry six turrets at a time instead of just three, which will enable her to place all six turrets during the pre-match setup phase. That will give players the ability to set up a tighter defense at the start of the match, but more importantly is that she will be able to move with the flow of combat more easily. The turrets also have had their cooldown reduced from 12 to 10 seconds. Her weapons will continue to function as they have, although her primary fire will have slightly increased range. 

Kaplan said the changes are coming soon to the PTR, and Blizzard hopes to get feedback on the changes from both experienced Symmetra players and newcomers. "We're really looking at Symmetra overall and holistically," Kaplan said. "We want her to be a less situational character, and a character that sees a lot more use." 

World of Warcraft celebrates 12th birthday with free gift corgi puppies

Sign in before November 30 to claim " special annniversary gift package ".

Blizzard's enduring fantasy MMO series World of Warcraft is celebrating its 12th year anniversary by giving away free stuff. Inclusive to its 'Anniversary Gift Package' players can expect 200 Timewarped Badges, a Celebration Package item which increases experience and reputation gains from kills by "12 percent for one hour", and a new quest. 

By way of a "Letter from the Timewalkers" the new quest will send players to either Orgrimmar or Stormwind. "Questgivers Historian Llore and Historian Ju’pe will have a daily quest for players to earn additional Timewarped Badges by answering World of Warcraft trivia," reads an update post on the WoW site. "If you’d like this year’s anniversary gift, the Corgi Pup, you can purchase it from them along with other additional anniversary goodies."

That's the pup in the header image above, however players are sharing their own canine-inspired snaps via the #wow12thanniversary hashtag. To claim your own, Blizzard suggests logging in between now and November 30 to earn WoW’s 12th Anniversary achievement, before checking your mail for the special Anniversary Gift Package. WoW was first released in North America on November 23, 2004 (European players had to wait until February 11, 2005).

Duncan Jones would love to do another Warcraft film, but "he need the right conditions"

Jones suggested on Twitter that there were "too many cooks" on the first film.
We all (well, most of us) had high hopes for Duncan Jones' Warcraft movie
hopes that were dashed on the rocks of reality when it came out. It's far from
the worst movie ever but it was definitely disappointing, as we dug into here.
Despite all that, and the overlong process of actually getting the thing onto the
screen, director Duncan Jones said on Twitter that he'd "love to do another one,
" but only "under the right conditions."

And what would those conditions be?

Jones doesn't elaborate any more than that, but even so it's a revealing tweet.
Licensed films are inherently collaborative efforts, and a property as big (and as
valuable) as Warcraft is bound to have many hands on the wheel—clearly more
than Jones would have liked. The comment also echoes statements made in
2013 by Sam Raimi, who was signed to direct the film prior to Jones taking over.

"Only once Robert [Rodat] was done [writing an original screenplay] did we
realize that Blizzard had veto power, and we didn't know that," Raimi said at the
time. But Blizzard had "reservations" about their story, so after nine months of
scripting, they "basically had to start over. And Robert did start over, but it was
taking too long for the people at Blizzard, and their patience ran out. Honestly, I
think it was mismanagement on their behalf."

Sounds like Jones' experience was a little bumpy too.

Watch the Overwatch voice actors hang out as their in-game characters

Last week, the voice cast of Overwatch had a get-together at Blizzard HQ, and shenanigans ensued. It was a lot of fun, but the camerawork wasn't great. So YouTuber Greatdictator fired up the Source Filmmaker and created a video of his own, using the "real "Overwatch cast. And as enjoyable as it was to see the faces behind the voices in the original, I think this one is even better. 

The animation is really good, a dead-on match for the voices, but it's all the action in the background that really tips the scales. The meet-up is clearly taking place in the midst of the most interesting BlizzCon of all time, and also the most violent—although obviously some visitors just want to be left alone to eat their lunch. Is that the Pyro I see back there? 

The one character missing, naturally, is Sombra, who only went live a couple of days ago. Pity.