The Elder Scrolls Online's\nSeptember 2026 Crown Store showcase,\nwhich is the monthly list of what its real-money shop will sell, went up on 28 August. It names\nfour Crown Crate lines, meaning four separate ranges of paid boxes whose contents are\nrandom. Our maths on their windows puts all four on sale together between 10 and 17 September.
\nOne more bit of vocabulary and you have the lot. Golden Pursuits, the campaign handing out the\nfree crates, is a rotating list of in-game tasks that pay shop rewards. Its Straight to the\nCrate run goes until 17 September and, in the showcase's own words, "allows you to earn up to 20\nfree crates".
\n| Crate line | \nWindow | \n
|---|---|
| Diamond Anniversary | \n20 August to 17 September | \n
| Scalecaller | \n27 August to 17 September | \n
| Wraithtide | \n3 September to 17 September | \n
| Xanmeer | \n10 September to 24 September | \n
Our maths on those windows puts all four on sale at the same time between 10 and 17 September.\nThe page itself does not point the overlap out.
\nThe showcase's highlights section leads with these dated items. The Reveries Formal Wear\ncostume is new, 8 to 21 September. Keshu the Black Fin arrives from Gideon as a new\nhouseguest, 10 to 24 September. A houseguest is a character who lives in your player house.
\nThe Fair Winds home returns 17 September to 14 October, which the page ties to the High\nSeas of Tamriel event arriving 30 September (Tamriel is the continent the whole series is set\non). And for followers of the Mad God there is the new Sheogorad Chateau house, stocked from\nthe Sheograth Shenanigans furnishing pack, both 30 September to 15 October.
\nBeneath the highlights the page carries a full week-by-week schedule. Thirty-six of its entries\nare marked as carrying an ESO Plus discount, ESO Plus being the game's paid monthly membership.\nOne item, the Amaranthine Pocket Watcher (28 September to 12 October), is listed as "available\nin the Crown Store for Gems and Seals".
\nNine entries in the schedule carry a note saying where the in-game version comes from: six arms\npacks and three crafting motifs. A motif is a pattern book that unlocks a style of gear.
\nThe routes are not all the same, and that is worth saying, because the pattern is easy to\nover-read. Four of the arms packs name a dungeon boss for the matching mask page. The Slimecraw\npack points at Alene Pellingare in Veteran Wayrest Sewers I. The Scourge Harvester pack points\nat Alene and Varaine Pellingare in Veteran Wayrest Sewers II. The Lord Warden pack points at\nLord Warden Dusk in Imperial City Prison, and the Shadowrend pack at High Kinlord Rilis in\nVeteran Banished Cells I.
\nFor each of those four, the shoulder page has two routes. Buy it for 50 undaunted keys, from Maj\nal-Ragath in most cases and from Pledge Master Urgarlag Chief-bane for the Lord Warden set. Or\ntake a chance from that same vendor's mystery coffer for one key.
\nThe other two arms packs point somewhere else entirely. The Oaken Order armor pages have "a\nsmall chance to drop from Glorious Pan-Tamriel Reward Boxes and Pan-Tamriel Reward Boxes". The\nEltheric Revenant pages have a small chance to drop from "certain Dremora Plunder Skulls\nintroduced in the 2025 run of the Witches Festival Event". The page adds, for the Oaken Order,\nthe Eltheric Revenant and the Glass motif alike, that the event they come from is not live\nduring this period.
\nTwo of the three motifs follow the dungeon-boss pattern. Fang Lair chapters have a chance to\ndrop from Thurvokun in Fang Lair, and Waking Flame chapters from Baron Zaudrus in The Cauldron.\nThe page notes in both cases that the chance is higher on veteran difficulty and hard mode. The\nthird goes elsewhere: Glass chapters turn up in Anniversary Jubilee Gift Boxes, with the\ncomplete book sold by Rolis Hlaalu for 180 Writ Vouchers.
\nFour of the notes go further and name an achievement that improves the odds. Among them are\n"Down the Gutter" for the Slimecraw set and "Pellingare Ghoul Slayer" for the Scourge Harvester\none.
\nFour crate lines are open at once this month. Our maths on the windows puts all four on sale\ntogether between 10 and 17 September. Our reading of the sequencing is that it is deliberate.\nThe windows are staggered rather than aligned, so from 20 August to 24 September there is never\na day on this schedule with no crate line open.
\nThat is the mechanic doing what the mechanic is for. Saying so plainly describes it rather\nthan accusing anybody.
\nThe free crates are the part we would look at hardest. Up to 20 crates earned before 17\nSeptember is a generous-sounding ceiling, and the campaign ends on the same day three of the\nfour crate lines close. Our reading is that handing a player crates from a line about to shut is\na funnel rather than a gift. Say what you like about the design, though. The ceiling and the\ndeadline are both stated plainly in the publisher's own announcement rather than left to be\nworked out.
\nThe genuinely good thing here is the farming notes. A shop page that stops mid-list to tell you\nwhich dungeon boss drops the mask you are about to buy is a shop page arguing against itself,\nnine times, in writing. That is the earn-it-instead line a shop page has no commercial reason to\nprint, and here it is in the publisher's own copy. Nine notes across a schedule this long is not\nmost of them. We would rather it were. The habit is still the right one and it deserves the\nname.
\nThe highlights the page chose to lead with are a costume, a houseguest, two houses and a\nfurnishing pack. Decoration, in a word. What the crates actually contain, this page does not\nsay, and we are not going to guess. Their contents are the thing a reader would most want\nlisted, and this showcase does not list them.
\nThe showcase says Update 51, which belongs to the game's current named run of months, and the\nHigh Seas of Tamriel event finish off the month. The crate windows run into October. Our calendar carries ESO's dated autumn with the\npublisher's own notice against each entry.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/eso-crown-store-september-2026/", "summary": "Four Crown Crate lines run through September while a tasks campaign lets you earn up to 20 free crates. The dates, the new items, and nine things to earn.", "title": "ESO's September shop runs four crate lines at once, and up to 20 crates can be earned", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/eso-crown-store-september-2026/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "The Warden rework in The Elder Scrolls Online still has no release date. In\na letter published on 1 September 2026,\nthe game's development team wrote that it is "not ready to share a release date today". The\nsame letter changes the running order: Templar now comes before Sorcerer. All three are\nplayable classes, and each is being rebuilt in turn.
\nSome plain words first, because the letter uses none of them. The Elder Scrolls Online, or\nESO, is a fantasy game shared with a great many other people. You pick a class, which is\nthe kit of skills your character fights with. ZeniMax Online Studios (ZOS), the team that makes it,\nis rebuilding those classes one at a time. The Warden is the one in the workshop now.
\n| Question | \nWhat the letter says | \n
|---|---|
| Warden release date | \nNone given: "we're not ready to share a release date today" | \n
| Is it still happening | \nYes: "development is continuing, the vision remains intact, and we're committed to bringing this refresh to you when it's ready." | \n
| Why the timeline moved | \nThe feedback loop adds time, plus "the July restructuring at ZOS" | \n
| Does the plan still stand | \nYes, per the letter: the studio letter from game director Nick Giacomini "still reflects our current roadmap" | \n
| Running order | \nTemplar moved ahead of Sorcerer | \n
| Updates already shared | \nThe letter says "including" the Dragonknight (another of the playable classes) and Werewolf, a transformation skill line a character carries alongside their class | \n
The team lists three problems it says it is fixing. The Warden "currently lacks a unified\nvisual identity and theme". Its skill lines are "role-centralized, reducing their\neffectiveness when attempting to utilize their entire kit", which in plain words means each\nline is built for one job and the whole kit does not work together. And Wardens "lack a\nunique mechanic to their kit that all roles can engage with".
\nWhat stays is listed too: nature magic, animals, ice-themed abilities, and a clear identity\nas protector of the natural world. What goes is the Morrowind of it. Morrowind (an old chapter\nof the game, set in a region of the same name) is what the Warden shipped alongside, and the\nclass was themed to match. The letter\nsays the rework is "pivoting away from the Morrowind-specific visual theming to better\nrepresent the natural world across all regions in Tamriel", the continent the whole series is\nset on. It credits community feedback for that call.
\nThe team is also looking at tying the class to the four seasons, spring through winter. The\nidea is to bind its themes into one whole rather than leave them as separate bits.
\nThe letter carries what it calls "very early work-in-progress examples". This is the part with\nsomething to look at rather than something to promise.
\nThe honest thing in this letter is the absence, and our reading is that a studio with a date\nwould have given one. "We're not ready to share a release date today" is more use to a player\ndeciding what to level than a quarter that quietly slips twice. The four videos do the work\nthe date cannot. Here is the thing, it is real, we cannot say when.
\nThe queue change is the part worth flagging, because it costs somebody something. The old\nroadmap, in the letter's words, "laid out that the Sorcerer refresh would follow the Warden\nclass". Templar now goes first. The letter says so plainly and says it "may disappoint some of\nyou", which is more candour than a silent reshuffle. It is still a cost. Sorcerer has moved\nfrom next in line to behind Templar, in a queue whose front position has no date at all.\nGetting classes out "as quickly and effectively as we're able to" is a fair goal. From a\nSorcerer player's chair, it is also indistinguishable from waiting longer.
\nThere is one date in reach, and it is not in this letter. The letter says a recent studio\nletter from Nick Giacomini still reflects the roadmap, without dating it. Our reading is that\nthis is\nthe game director's letter of 30 July.\nThat letter says of the class and combat refresh: "we are targeting 2027 for the next\nrefresh." It also says the team is "discussing some interim options for the classes still\nawaiting their full refresh". So 2027 is still the working target, by our reading, because the\nSeptember letter neither repeats it nor revises it. It is not a date the studio gave again\nthis week.
\nThe other thing we take from this letter is that ESO is still paying for July. "The July\nrestructuring at ZOS" is named as a cause here. The earlier\ngame director's letter\nmoved Update 51 to 28 September and pushed both Update 52 and the Crimson Veldt trial into\n2027. A trial is this game's word for a raid, which is a dungeon built for a large group. That\nletter wrote of "organizational changes and departures of teammates" without dating them. Our\nreading is that these are the same events, and that they are one of the two causes named for a\nclass rework nobody can date. Two letters, one root. That is not a criticism of the letter,\nwhich does the right thing by saying so out loud. It is a reason to read the next roadmap with\nJuly in mind.
\nOne note in the game's favour. The letter is explicit that combat work has not stopped while\nthe rework runs, and points at the ability changes made during the Update 51 public test\nserver, a copy of the game where changes are tried before release. The failure mode here is a\nclass rework that swallows every balance decision while it runs. The letter addresses that\nhead on rather than leaving it to be asked.
\nNothing the letter promises carries a date, which is the point. It promises more detail on the\nexact fixes as development continues. The dated ESO events are elsewhere: Update 51 on 28\nSeptember, and the rest of the game's autumn on our calendar, each with the\npublisher's own notice against it.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/eso-warden-refresh-no-date/", "summary": "The Elder Scrolls Online will not date its Warden class rework, and the Templar one now comes first. What the letter promises, and what it does not.", "title": "ESO won't date its Warden class rework, and Templar has jumped ahead of Sorcerer", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/eso-warden-refresh-no-date/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "BlizzCon 2026, which is Blizzard's own convention for its games, now has a running order.\nThe studio published the\nschedule, stream plan and rewards detail\non 1 September, eleven days out from the show on 12 and 13 September at the Anaheim\nConvention Center. The gap the first announcement left, whether any of it would be\nbroadcast, is closed.
\nThree of the slots below are esports finals, which are competitive tournament matches. The\nMDI, which stands for Mythic Dungeon Invitational, is the studio's dungeon speedrun\ncompetition. The AWC is its arena tournament. One panel on day two is about Hardcore, a mode\nwhere a character who dies is gone for good.
\nThe Warcraft slots and the two esports finals, taken from Blizzard's own longer list. All\ntimes Pacific, and all marked subject to change.
\n| Day | \nTime | \nSegment | \n
|---|---|---|
| Sat 12 Sep | \n10:30 a.m. | \nOpening Ceremony | \n
| Sat 12 Sep | \n12:00 p.m. | \nWorld of Warcraft: What's Next | \n
| Sat 12 Sep | \n12:45 p.m. | \nMDI Grand Finals, first match | \n
| Sat 12 Sep | \n2:00 p.m. | \nBuilding Cutscenes in World of Warcraft | \n
| Sat 12 Sep | \n2:45 p.m. | \nWorld of Warcraft: What's Next II | \n
| Sat 12 Sep | \n3:30 p.m. | \nDevelopers x Creators Showcase | \n
| Sat 12 Sep | \n5:30 p.m. | \nMDI Grand Finals, championship match | \n
| Sun 13 Sep | \n10:00 a.m. | \nWorld of Warcraft: Deep Dive | \n
| Sun 13 Sep | \n10:45 a.m. | \nCrafting Coziness and Creative Freedom | \n
| Sun 13 Sep | \n11:45 a.m. | \nWorld Building in World of Warcraft | \n
| Sun 13 Sep | \n1:15 p.m. | \nWorld of Warcraft: Art Design | \n
| Sun 13 Sep | \n2:45 p.m. | \nWorld of Warcraft: Design Deep Dive | \n
| Sun 13 Sep | \n4:15 p.m. | \nWorld of Warcraft Hardcore: What's Next | \n
| Sun 13 Sep | \n5:00 p.m. | \nAWC Grand Finals, championship match | \n
| Sun 13 Sep | \n5:20 p.m. | \nClosing Remarks | \n
Two "What's Next" panels on the same afternoon is the shape worth reading. A single roadmap\npanel is a year plan. Two back to back, with a cutscene panel wedged between them, reads as a\nroadmap split across a reveal and its detail. That is how a convention paces an announcement\nit wants to land twice.
\nThe second signal is Hardcore getting its own forward-looking panel on day two, at 4:15 p.m.,\nrather than a mention inside a broader session. A named "What's Next" slot is the smallest\npossible commitment a schedule can make to a mode, and it is still a commitment. We will take\nit. A mode where death is permanent, given a stage of its own, is the genre remembering what it\nis good at.
\nThe fine print is where our complaint sits, and Blizzard states it plainly. The streams cover\nthe opening ceremony, major panels and esports competitions. The musical\nperformances are not part of that, and neither are what Blizzard calls some other elements.\nThe band Le Sserafim plays at 6:00 p.m. on day two and the trophy ceremony follows at 6:30.\nAnyone attending in person has until 18 September to link a BlizzCon Pass, which is the\nin-person ticket, to a Battle.net account and still claim the rewards.
\nThat deadline is the bit that will cost somebody something. A linking window that closes five\ndays after the show, published inside a rewards section rather than on the ticket, quietly\nseparates people from something they already paid for. Put it on the ticket.
\nBlizzard says the schedule updates after the opening ceremony, so the day two list is the one\nmost likely to move. Both days, the two esports finals and the reward-linking deadline are on\nthe calendar with the day we last checked each against Blizzard's page.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-02T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/blizzcon-2026-schedule-and-stream/", "summary": "Blizzard published the BlizzCon 2026 schedule. What is streamed, what is not, and where the World of Warcraft panels and the two esports finals sit on each day.", "title": "BlizzCon 2026 has a running order, and WoW gets ten sessions across two days", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/blizzcon-2026-schedule-and-stream/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "The Moogle Treasure Trove returns on Wednesday 9 September 2026 as the First Hunt for\nAstronomy, by\nSquare Enix's own announcement.\nThe Trove, which is a recurring event that pays a temporary currency for replaying old\ncontent, is billed this time as a special edition marking the upcoming release of Evercold. It\nruns across two installments rather than one, and the headline reward is an uolon horn.
\n| \n | First Hunt | \nSecond Hunt | \n
|---|---|---|
| Starts | \n9 September 2026 | \n"a later date", no day given | \n
| Currency for exchange | \ndifferent tomestones from the other hunt's, per the announcement | \ndifferent again | \n
| Item lineup | \nits own | \na different one | \n
| The uolon horn | \nyes | \nyes, by Square Enix's own note | \n
| Extra requirement | \nminimog and ultimog challenges award the item the horn needs | \nnot stated | \n
A tomestone, in case that table is the first you have met one, is a token the game pays you\nfor finishing content, which you spend at a vendor. The announcement calls this event's ones\nirregular tomestones of astronomy I, and says the two hunts need different tomestones from\neach other.
\nSquare Enix calls this run "a special edition" and says it takes place across two\ninstallments, which is the announcement's own way of marking it as not the usual shape.
\nThe two-installment shape changes how much of this is urgent, and the answer is less than it\nlooks.
\nSquare Enix states plainly that the uolon horn is available in the Second Hunt too, so the\nreward is not on a clock that ends with part one. What does not carry is everything else. The\nannouncement says the tomestones required for exchange differ between the installments, and\nthat the item lineups differ too. Our reading is that anything banked in part one buys from\npart one's list and nothing else. Treat each half as its own shop with its own currency.
\nThe two footnotes are where the earning goes wrong. Running content with an adventurer\nsquadron, or through Duty Support, which is the system that fills a party with\ncomputer-controlled allies, awards no irregular tomestones of astronomy at all. That removes\nthe most convenient way to farm old content alone. An unrestricted party has to have Level\nSync switched on to receive them, and Level Sync is the rule that drops a strong character\ndown to a lower area's power. Unrestricted parties are exactly how a high-level group blitzes\nlow-level content, so the fastest method is also the one most likely to award nothing.
\nThat exclusion is the one thing here we would argue with. Duty Support is the tool Square Enix\nbuilt so a player without a regular group could still see old content. Switching it off for\nthe event that rewards old content is a quiet tax on the people with the least flexible\nschedules. The event is otherwise the good kind: a currency earned by playing, spent from a\nfixed list, with nothing for sale.
\nThe framing is worth a line of its own. Square Enix pegs this Trove to the release of Evercold\nrather than to a content lull. Our reading is that this is a catch-up window aimed at people\nlevelling a job, meaning a character class, before the expansion. That is a different audience\nfrom the pre-patch drought a Trove usually fills.
\nPatch 7.56 arrives the day before, on 8 September, and\nSquare Enix's own notice\nsays it closes PvP Series 11 with it, PvP being short for player versus player.
\nA PvP Series is a numbered season of that side of the game's reward track.\nThe Trove start date and the patch both sit on\nthe calendar with the day we last checked them. Evercold is on\nthe release tracker with no date at all, because Square Enix has not given one.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-02T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/ffxiv-moogle-treasure-trove-9-september/", "summary": "Square Enix dated the First Hunt for Astronomy to 9 September. What the uolon horn needs, which runs award nothing, and why missing part one is survivable.", "title": "FFXIV's Moogle Treasure Trove returns on 9 September with a two-part hunt", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/ffxiv-moogle-treasure-trove-9-september/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "The free subscription period on the Nintendo Switch 2 version of Final Fantasy XIV ends at\n11:59 p.m. on Monday 7 September 2026 in each region.\nSquare Enix's own notice\nexplains what happens next in more detail than the date suggests. Billing on this platform\ndoes not work like the others.
\nA subscription, for anyone new to the game, is the recurring fee you pay to keep playing. And\nFFXIV is simply the usual short name for Final Fantasy XIV, which is why the coins below are\ncalled FFXIV Coins.
\n| \n | How it works | \n
|---|---|
| Subscription scope | \nSeparate from every other platform, even for an existing subscriber | \n
| Discount | \nHalf price with an active subscription elsewhere, but not while a 30-day free play period is running there | \n
| Payment method | \nthe subscription itself, FFXIV Coins from the Nintendo eShop only | \n
| Payment registration opens | \n8 September, 3:00 a.m. Pacific | \n
| Renewal | \nAutomatic while the coin balance covers it, halted when it does not | \n
| Account link | \nMade on first launch, and cannot be undone or transferred | \n
| Nintendo Switch Online | \nNot required to play; members get one extra free teleport destination | \n
Two of those lines cost money or characters if they are read late, and neither is the headline\ndate.
\nStart with the one we think is indefensible. A subscription is rent on a world, and this is\nthe same world, the same character and the same server. Charging a second time because the\nplayer picked up a different box is a platform tax wearing a product's clothes. The half-price\ndiscount is a discount off a fee that should not exist, and it comes with a condition on top.
\nThe condition is the part that will catch people. On Switch 2, registering a Starter or\nComplete Edition, which are the two retail bundles, gets you a 30-day free play window opening\non 8 September. While a free play period is active on another platform, the\nhalf-price Switch 2 subscription is not available. Square Enix adds that the discount does\napply if remaining game time is still on the other platform when the charge lands. So the\norder of operations decides the price.
\nThe account link is the other one, and it is the only genuinely irreversible step here. On\nfirst launch the Switch 2 user profile binds to a Square Enix account permanently. An existing\nplayer must pick their existing service account at the licence prompt. Choosing to create a\nnew service account instead means, in Square Enix's words, that you will be unable to play as\nyour existing character. The registered region has to match as well: an Americas account needs a Nintendo\naccount registered in the United States, Canada or another applicable region.
\nOne smaller trap is worth knowing before anyone blames the game. Hotbars, HUD layouts (the\nHUD being the bars and buttons drawn over the game screen) and macros are stored on the device\nrather than the account, and Square Enix says they are not synced automatically. So a\ncharacter logged in on Switch 2 arrives with whatever that console holds, until the settings\nare uploaded from the other platform through the server backup feature and downloaded again\nhere.
\nPatch 7.56 lands on 8 September and, by the same notice, is scheduled to resolve the\nlauncher bug that currently stops it opening the coin purchase screen in the eShop. Until it does, coins are\nbought through the console home menu. Both dates are on the calendar with the day\nwe last checked them.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-02T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/ffxiv-switch-2-subscription-starts-8-september/", "summary": "A separate subscription, half price only for existing subscribers, paid in coins from the eShop, and an account link that can never be undone.", "title": "FFXIV on Switch 2 starts charging on 8 September, and the account link is permanent", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/ffxiv-switch-2-subscription-starts-8-september/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Jagex, which is the studio behind Old School RuneScape, shipped the rest of its Summer Sweep\nUp on 2 September 2026.\nEverything landed except the pet updates, which its own note says are planned for release\nwithin the next two weeks.\nThe changelog\nis mostly small mercies: stackable Unsireds, a lectern that remembers what you were making,\ninventory locking in the Seed Vault, and four amulets for spellcasters plus a fifth that\ncombines them.
\nA little of the game's own vocabulary before the numbers. An Unsired is a drop from the\nAbyssal Sire, one of the game's bosses, traded in for a reward. The Seed Vault is the storage room for farming seeds.\nRunecraft is the skill that makes magic runes. GP means gold pieces, the currency. A raid is a\ndungeon built for a group. And Permanent Deadman Mode, which the changelog names as such, is\na high-risk mode where dying costs a great deal.
\n| Change | \nDetail | \n
|---|---|
| Necklace of Fangs | \n+12 Ranged Accuracy, +1 Ranged Strength, 1 in 128 from Turoths; also drops from Spiked Turoths, at a rate Jagex does not give | \n
| Elemental jewels | \n1 in 64 each: air from Killerwatts, water from Sea Snake Hatchlings, earth from Molanisks, fire from Infernal Mages | \n
| Elemental amulets | \n+10 Magic Accuracy, +2 max hit, Runecraft 18 to 21 by element | \n
| Elemental amulet, combined | \nThe four elemental amulets plus 500 runes of each element, Runecraft 30; +10 Magic Accuracy and +2 max hit on all elemental spells | \n
| Shark lures | \n1 lure, 50% chance of 5 ticks becoming 4; 3 lures, always 4; 5 lures, always 4 with a 50% chance of 3 | \n
| Fishing Sacks | \n500 Molch pearls reclaimable per extra sack, from Alry the Angler | \n
| Permanent Deadman risk floors | \nat least 100,000 GP in alch value to attack other players, at least 500,000 near the chest; raid entry needs at least 1,000,000 AND no Deadman protection remaining | \n
Alch value, in that last row, is what an item is worth when magically turned into coins.
\nThe Unsired fix is the model here, and it is worth explaining, because it shows the right way\nto solve this kind of problem.
\nUnsireds could not stack because each one, in Jagex's words, had to retain separate information\nabout its potential reward. Jagex moved the roll to the Font of Consumption instead. Our\nreading is that this is the harder of the two available fixes and the better one. It makes\nevery Unsired the same item, rather than bolting on a storage exception that would have left\nthe oddity in place. A design fix rather than a convenience feature, and it costs the player\nnothing.
\nThe same instinct runs through the rest. A lectern that remembers your last tablet. Ghommal's\nLucky Penny working when consumed rather than worn. Inventory locks in the Seed Vault. Abyssal\nLanterns storable in Magic Wardrobes, which the changelog credits to popular request. None of\nthat is content. Most of it is friction with no benefit to anyone, and removing friction is\nthe cheapest respect a studio can pay to the people playing.
\nDeadman is the one that will start an argument, and we think Jagex has it right. You now need\nat least 100,000 GP in alch value to attack another player, and at least 500,000 near the\nchest. Entering a raid area needs at least a million risked and no protection left. A player\nwho risks nothing can no longer farm players who risk everything. A permanent mode where players fight each other works\nbest when the attacker has skin in the game.
\nThe one blemish is a promise rather than a change. The pet updates would let pets follow you\ninto content like the Gauntlet, Fossil Island's underwater area and various minigames, and\nrespawn with you on death. They did not make this batch, and Jagex says only that they are\nplanned for release in the next two weeks.
\nJagex plans the pet changes for the next two weeks, and lists the Phosani's Nightmare pillar\nhealth bars for a coldfix next week. Phosani's Nightmare is a solo version of one of the\ngame's hardest boss fights. Nothing new joins the calendar from this batch.
\nThat coldfix note sits oddly, and our reading is that it is worth flagging. A line further\ndown the same page says the totems and pillars at Phosani's Nightmare were not showing their\nhealth accurately and have been fixed, while the Known Issues box still lists the problem as\noutstanding. Jagex never says the two are the same bug.
\nThe page does carry two dated events: LANscape on 5 September, which is the studio's own\nin-person day where creators play together, and Dragonwilds 1.0 on 15 September. Both are\nalready on the calendar from their own announcements.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-02T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/patches/osrs-summer-sweep-up-remaining-changes/", "summary": "Jagex's 2 September batch brings the rest of Summer Sweep Up bar the pets: stackable Unsireds, four amulets for spellcasters, stricter floors in Deadman.", "title": "Old School RuneScape ships the rest of Summer Sweep Up, with only the pets held back", "url": "https://0hp.com/patches/osrs-summer-sweep-up-remaining-changes/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Blizzard's fix pass dated 1 September 2026 points in two directions at once. Thirteen\ncharacter specialisations went up in World of Warcraft, while several healing and defensive\nnumbers came down where players fight each other. Ten of the thirteen took a damage increase, two took\nhealing and one took survivability. It all sits on\nBlizzard's running hotfix page,\nwhich is edited in place as fixes land rather than reposted each time.
\nThree words to carry through the rest of this. A hotfix is a small change applied to the live\ngame without taking it down. A spec, short for specialisation, is the role and playstyle a\ncharacter picks inside their class. A raid is a dungeon built for a large group.
\n| Spec | \nChange | \n
|---|---|
| Frost Death Knight | \nHowling Blast and Obliterate +15%, Frost Strike +20%, melee +10% | \n
| Protection Paladin | \nBlaze of Glory +150%, Consecration +30%, Divine Guidance +30% | \n
| Feral Druid | \nall ability damage +5%, auto-attacks +10%, Ferocious Bite +10% | \n
| Beast Mastery and Survival Hunter | \n+7% each, Survival only +3% against other players | \n
| Frost Mage | \n+6% | \n
| Fire Mage | \n+3% | \n
| Restoration Druid | \nhealing +4% | \n
| Fire Mage | \n+3% | \n
| Restoration Druid | \nhealing +4% | \n
| Fire Mage | \n+3% | \n
| Restoration Druid | \nhealing +4% | \n
| Fire Mage | \n+3% | \n
| Restoration Druid | \nhealing +4% | \n
| Vengeance Demon Hunter | \nDemonic Wards 15% (was 12%), Fel Devastation healing +25% | \n
| Mistweaver Monk | \nhealing +5%, tier 4-piece proc chance 25% (was 20%) | \n
| Havoc, Balance, Windwalker | \n+4% each, against monsters only | \n
A tier set, which is a matched set of gear whose pieces give a bonus when worn together, is\nwhat the Mistweaver "four-piece" row is about: wearing four of them.
\nFive of those rows carry a developer note explaining the intent, and the notes are more\nspecific than the numbers. Frost Death Knight is aimed at single target and two-target cleave.\nVengeance is called out as still short defensively. Feral is called short in raids. Mistweaver\nis said to want more healing and more value from its four-piece. Protection Paladin is behind\nother tanks in dungeons.
\nThis is a difficulty correction aimed at the bottom of the ladder rather than the top, and\nthat is the right end to aim at.
\nThe Venomous Abyss, which is the raid at the centre of the current season, has four\ndifficulty settings. Raid Finder, the automatic queue that puts strangers into an easier\nversion, sits at the bottom. Then Normal, then Heroic, then Mythic at the top. Every Venomous\nAbyss change on 1 September touching Raid Finder, or a smaller Normal or Heroic group, makes\nthe fight easier. Inside that raid, Mythic is the only setting that gets stricter anywhere, on the Twin Fangs,\nthough two abilities on the Coiled Altar, one of its boss fights, were cut there as well.
\nNek'zali the Soulcoiler lost 15 percent of its health in Raid Finder, the Entombed Sentinels\nthe same, and Vexhul and Ithraz 20 percent. On Mythic, Eternal Venom now takes ten\napplications to kill instead of fewer, and Ravenous Feast hits at least four people.
\nRead that split as a statement about whose evening matters. Midnight Season 2 is the game's\ncurrent run of months, and Blizzard's own\nschedule for it\nputs wing 3 of that raid in the week of 1 September, so it opened the same week these\nnumbers came down. A group walking in that night met a trimmed version rather than the one\nthat had been standing. Nobody had to buy anything to get that. The fight moved. A player with a couple of evenings a\nweek getting a fix in a hotfix, for free, is how this is supposed to work. Worth saying out loud in a genre where the same problem is often solved by\nselling somebody a shortcut.
\nThe pass for fights between players runs both ways, and the healing cuts are unusually blunt\nabout why. Healers keep topping people up too fast. So the Gladiator's Distinction set bonus now grants 5\npercent primary stat for healing specialisations instead of 10, Restoration Druid's Swiftmend\nheals 20 percent less, and Mage barriers absorb a quarter less. Those are pace changes aimed\nat shortening matches rather than at any one class, and the studio saying so in the notes\nbeats leaving people to guess from the numbers.
\nWhere we would push: a fix pass this large arrives as edits to one running page, dated by day\nrather than laid out change by change with a build behind each one. Six weeks from now,\nworking out which version your Tuesday night sat on means reading the whole page again.
\nCredit where it is due: Wowhead is where the community keeps a\nrunning record of these hotfixes.
\nThe Venomous Abyss finishes opening with Raid Finder wing 4 in the week of 8 September,\nthe last scheduled unlock of Midnight Season 2. That date, and BlizzCon, which is Blizzard's\nown convention and which we wrote up in\nour piece on its running order, are both on\nthe calendar with the day we last checked them.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-02T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/patches/wow-hotfixes-1-september-2026/", "summary": "Blizzard's 1 September pass lifts thirteen specialisations, trims boss health in the automatic raid queue, and cuts healing where players fight each other.", "title": "WoW's 1 September hotfixes lift thirteen specs and cut boss health in the easy queue", "url": "https://0hp.com/patches/wow-hotfixes-1-september-2026/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Albion Online's Dragonfire update went live on 31 August 2026, and\nSandbox Interactive's own launch post\nleads with a 20-player dungeon where nobody can attack you, and calls it the greatest\nchallenge against the game itself that Albion has seen yet. The route to it runs through the Ancient Lands, which is a new region of floating islands\nwhere rival groups very much can.
\nThat contrast is the whole story, so here is the vocabulary. Albion Online is a fantasy world\nwhere items are made by players, and where in much of the map other players are allowed to\nattack you. PvE, short for player versus environment, means fighting the game's own\nmonsters. PvP, short for player versus player, means fighting each other.
\n| Layer | \nParty size | \nContested? | \n
|---|---|---|
| Ancient Lands portals | \nSolo up to 20, matched with similar sizes | \nYes, deeper routes carry a higher chance of rivals | \n
| Leygates, opened with Keystones | \nAs above | \nYes, and rewards rise with depth | \n
| Dragon Sanctuary, entered with a Spirit Waystone | \n20 | \nNo, no other players can attack you | \n
| Dragon attacks, Royal Continent (the safer inner region) | \nOpen, with little warning | \nWhoever is nearby | \n
| Dragon attacks, Outlands (the lawless outer region) | \nOpen, announced in advance | \nYes, rivals can contest the fight and its rewards | \n
The Royal Continent is the game's inner region and the Outlands its outer one, where players\nhold territory themselves.
\nRewards run from Dragon Scales, which craft into the Dragonslayer armour set, up to a Fire\nDrake Egg from Azaryon that can be raised at home into a Firewing Drake.
\nThe two-tier design is the smart part, and it is a genuine answer to an old argument.
\nAlbion's identity is that everything worth having is contestable, which is also why a lot of\nplayers never see its best content. Dragonfire keeps the contest where the value accrues, in\nthe Ancient Lands and on the routes deeper in, and then puts what the studio calls its most\ndemanding fight against the game itself behind a door other players cannot open. You still have to survive a contested region to get\nthe Spirit Waystone. What you do not have to do is lose a two-hour run to an ambush on the\nlast boss. That is a world with rules rather than a lobby with a queue, and it is the right\ninstinct.
\nThe Outlands dragon attacks are the same idea from the other side. Announcing them in advance\nso guilds can assemble, and letting rivals show up for exactly that reason, turns a world boss\ninto a scheduled territorial fight. Announced contested content beats surprise contested\ncontent, because both sides chose it.
\nWhere we would sound a note of caution is the reward ladder. A Fire Drake Egg raised at home\ninto a mount, exclusive cosmetics gated behind Draconic Insight, plus creator giveaways\nrunning six weeks. That is a lot of engagement machinery bolted to one update. Nothing in the\nlaunch post is sold for money, which is the thing that matters, and it is worth watching that\nit stays that way.
\nThe launch gift in Albion's own shops runs to 7 September at 10:00 UTC, and doubled Twitch\ndrops, which are rewards for watching a stream, run to 14 September at 09:30 UTC. Both dates are on the calendar with the day we last checked\nthem.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-01T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/patches/albion-dragonfire-ancient-lands/", "summary": "The Ancient Lands opened on 31 August: portals scaled from solo to 20, a dungeon nobody can raid you in, and dragon attacks rival groups can contest.", "title": "Albion's Dragonfire update puts a 20-player dungeon above the clouds, safe from raiders", "url": "https://0hp.com/patches/albion-dragonfire-ancient-lands/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Patch 7.56 for Final Fantasy XIV is dated to the start of downtime on Tuesday 8 September\n2026. The date comes from Square Enix's own notice that\nPvP Series 11 ends with the patch.\nPvP is short for player versus player, the part of the game where players fight each other,\nand a Series is a numbered season of its reward track.
\nThat is a useful reminder, because the deadline people actually miss is the season closing\nunder the patch rather than the patch itself.
\nSeveral things move on the eighth, and not all of them are updates.
\n| What | \nWhen | \nDetail | \n
|---|---|---|
| Patch 7.56 downtime begins | \nTue 8 Sep 2026 | \nBrings beastmaster, a limited job (job is this game's word for a character class) | \n
| PvP Series 11 ends | \nTue 8 Sep 2026 | \nSeries experience and level reset, rewards replaced | \n
| Series 11 rewards claimable until | \nend of Series 12 | \nTrophy crystals carry over | \n
| Switch 2 free subscription period ends | \nMon 7 Sep 2026, 23:59 local | \n30-day free play then starts 8 Sep | \n
| Moogle Treasure Trove, First Hunt for Astronomy | \nWed 9 Sep 2026 | \nTwo installments, uolon horn reward | \n
Beastmaster is the patch's headline, and it comes from a different notice. The\nLetter from the Producer LIVE Part XCIII digest\nwas recorded at Fan Festival 2026 in Berlin, which is the game's own convention. Lead battle\ncontent designer Masaki Nakagawa walks through live gameplay of beastmaster there. Square Enix\ncalls it the limited job introduced in Patch 7.56, a job being a character class and a limited\none being a class that only works in certain content.
\nThis is the quiet one, and it is a bill rather than a patch.
\nBy its own notice on Switch 2 subscription fees,\nSquare Enix ran a free subscription period on the Nintendo Switch 2 version, introduced to\nhelp ensure server stability. That period ends at 23:59 local time in each region on Monday\n7 September, the night before downtime. From Tuesday 8 September, the 30-day free play\nwindow that came with a Starter or Complete Edition registration begins. Those are the two\nbundles the game is sold in. A subscription, which is the recurring fee you pay to keep\nplaying, is required once that window has elapsed.
\nThe same notice carries the part that decides what you pay. A Switch 2 subscription is\nseparate from every other platform's, even for an existing subscriber. It is half price with\nan active subscription elsewhere, and that discount does not apply while a 30-day free play\nperiod is running on the other platform.
\nSo the practical order runs like this. The free period ends the night of the seventh. The\n30-day clock starts on the eighth. Thirty days from there lands in early October, which is\nwhere our maths says the first real charge arrives for anyone who registers then and does not\npay before it elapses. Square Enix gives the first two dates, not the third. The free trial is\nunaffected and stays free, which the notice says outright.
\nWe are going to defend the model and then complain about the paperwork.
\nA flat monthly subscription is the fairest arrangement in this genre, and it is worth saying\nso while the industry drifts the other way. Everyone pays the same. Everyone gets the same\ngame. Nobody's character is stronger because their card is. Square Enix charging for Final\nFantasy XIV the way it always has, rather than opening a shop that sells the difference, is\nwhy a patch note like this reads as a schedule instead of a price list.
\nThe paperwork is where we would push. There are three dates in this chain. The free period\nends at 23:59 the night before downtime. The 30-day clock starts the following day. Our maths\nputs the first real charge in early October. Only one of those three lands in most people's\nheads. Anyone who registered at launch on Switch 2 and has not paid yet will meet a charge\nthey did not plan for, or find their subscription simply stops. Nobody is being tricked here.\nIt is a sequence nobody wrote down for them, and a single line in the launcher would fix it.
\nThe free trial is unaffected and stays free, which remains one of the more genuinely generous\nthings any subscription game does.
\nThe Moogle Treasure Trove opens the day after the patch, on Wednesday 9 September. The\nTrove is a recurring event that pays a temporary currency for playing old content, and this\nrun is called the First Hunt for Astronomy.
\nBy\nits own announcement,\nSquare Enix calls it a special edition celebrating the upcoming release of Evercold, and it\nruns across two installments. The uolon horn needs an item awarded for minimog and ultimog\nchallenges. The horn is available in the second hunt as well, so missing the first one is not\nfatal.
\nBeyond that, 7.56 is a closing patch rather than an opening one. The next thing on the horizon\nis Evercold itself, which Square Enix names only as an upcoming release. We carry it on\nthe release tracker with no date at all, because it has not given one. Every date\nabove is on the calendar.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-01T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/patches/ffxiv-patch-7-56-lands-8-september/", "summary": "Square Enix has dated Patch 7.56 to the 8 September downtime. What ends that day, what starts the next, and what to claim before it does.", "title": "FFXIV Patch 7.56 lands 8 September, and closes a reward season under it", "url": "https://0hp.com/patches/ffxiv-patch-7-56-lands-8-september/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Square Enix has published the overnight windows when Final Fantasy XIV may go down through the\nfirst half of September, in\na notice aimed at players booking a wedding.\nThere are nine of them, they cluster in threes, and every one runs from 9:00 p.m. Pacific to\n4:00 a.m. the following morning.
\nYes, a wedding. The Ceremony of Eternal Bonding is the game's in-game wedding, booked in\nadvance for a fixed slot, which is why downtime is a scheduling problem rather than an\ninconvenience.
\n| Nights | \nWindow, Pacific | \n
|---|---|
| 31 Aug into 1 Sep | \n9:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. | \n
| 1 into 2 Sep | \n9:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. | \n
| 2 into 3 Sep | \n9:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. | \n
| 7 into 8 Sep | \n9:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. | \n
| 8 into 9 Sep | \n9:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. | \n
| 9 into 10 Sep | \n9:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. | \n
| 14 into 15 Sep | \n9:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. | \n
| 15 into 16 Sep | \n9:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. | \n
| 16 into 17 Sep | \n9:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. | \n
Square Enix marks all nine as subject to change, and says emergency maintenance can still\nhappen outside them. The confirmed list, at the time of the notice, was empty.
\nCredit where it is due, because this is a publisher doing something most do not.
\nThe value of this list is not the wedding advice. It is that the three clusters line up with\nthe week of Patch 7.56 and the weeks either side of it. That turns a scheduling note into the\nclearest public statement of when the servers are expected to be touched.
\nThe middle cluster, 7 to 10 September, brackets the patch itself.\nSquare Enix's own notice\ndates Patch 7.56 to the start of downtime on 8 September, and\na separate announcement\nopens the Moogle Treasure Trove, a recurring event that pays a temporary currency for playing\nold content, on the ninth. The first cluster covers the run-up. The third covers the week\nafter, which on our reading is where the small follow-up fixes land once a patch has met live\nservers. Nothing here promises downtime on any given night, and Square Enix says emergency\nmaintenance can happen outside the list.
\nPublishing a maintenance window before it is confirmed costs a studio nothing but the risk of\nbeing held to it. Square Enix has done it here for an in-game wedding, which is exactly the\nkind of feature a schedule usually ignores. That is respect for a player's time, and it is the\nstandard the rest of the industry should be measured against.
\nThe one rule worth carrying away is the 2018 change buried at the bottom of the notice. A\nceremony booked to start after maintenance or an outage ends stays valid and needs no\nrescheduling. Only a reservation that overlaps confirmed maintenance has to move, and\nconfirmed is a stricter word than possible. With nothing confirmed, the honest reading is that\nall nine nights are a warning rather than a plan.
\nPatch 7.56 arrives with the downtime on 8 September, and by the notice linked above it\ncloses PvP Series 11, which is the numbered season of the player-versus-player reward track. Every dated item here sits on\nthe calendar with the day we last checked it against the Lodestone, which is the\ngame's own news site.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-01T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/ffxiv-september-maintenance-windows/", "summary": "Square Enix published nine overnight windows when downtime may run before and after Patch 7.56, and warns an in-game wedding inside one can be cancelled.", "title": "FFXIV lists nine nights when the servers might go down, from 31 August", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/ffxiv-september-maintenance-windows/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "World of Warcraft's Midnight Season 2, the game's current run of months, finishes unlocking in\nthe week of 8 September 2026. That is when the fourth and last chunk of its big group\ndungeon opens to the automatic queue. Blizzard staged the season across five weekly steps rather\nthan one day, in\nits own announcement.
\nThe names, in plain words. The Venomous Abyss is this season's raid, which is a dungeon built\nfor a large group and the hardest thing on the schedule. Raid Finder is the automatic queue that\nputs strangers into an easier version of it, released in chunks called wings. Above Raid Finder\nsit three harder settings: Normal, then Heroic, then Mythic at the top. The Great Vault is the\nweekly chest a character earns just by playing. Delves are short solo dungeons.
\n| Week of | \nWhat opened | \n
|---|---|
| 11 August | \nAltar of Fangs, Heroic and Mythic 0 dungeons, the new eight-dungeon rotation, Tidebound Grotto on World difficulty, Prey Normal and Hard, Nemesis delves at the first difficulty, arena training grounds | \n
| 18 August | \nThe Venomous Abyss on Normal, Heroic, Mythic and Raid Finder wing 1, Mythic+ Season 2, player-versus-player Season 2, bountiful delves and keys, Prey Nightmare mode, Great Vault season rewards | \n
| 25 August | \nRaid Finder wing 2 and the raid's story mode | \n
| 1 September | \nRaid Finder wing 3 | \n
| 8 September | \nRaid Finder wing 4 | \n
Mythic 0 is the detail people miss in that table. It ran on a weekly lockout in the first week\nand moved to a daily reset in the second, at the same 292 item level either way. Item level is\nthe number that says how strong a piece of gear is.
\nA five-week ramp is a decision about who the season is for. Read it in order and it tells you\nwho Blizzard expects to be where.
\nThe first week is a gearing week with no raid in it at all. The second carries almost everything\ncompetitive at once: the timed dungeons, the fighting between players, the raid on Normal,\nHeroic, Mythic and the first Raid Finder wing, and the Great Vault, all turning on together. The three weeks after that add the raid's story mode and\nthree more Raid Finder wings, and nothing else.
\nThat last part is the interesting choice, and we think it is a good one. A schedule whose back\nhalf is built entirely around pacing the story for people who do not raid on a fixed night\ntreats a casual evening as a legitimate way to play rather than a lesser one. The competitive\nplayers got everything in week two and are not waiting on anybody.
\nFor a returning player the practical read is that arriving now costs almost nothing. Every\nsource of gear except the last two Raid Finder wings has been open since the week of 18\nAugust. The dungeon rotation is fixed\nfor the season. The rating thresholds are published up front: 1500 for the title "the Venomous", 2000 for the\nmount Breath of Blight, 3000 for Breath of Ruin. Rating here is the score a character builds\nfrom timed dungeon runs. The top one percent and top 0.1 percent of players in your region\nsettle at the season's end rather than on the way through. Thresholds published up front are\nthe difference between a goal and a treadmill.
\nThe raid's rewards are unusually generous for housing, and this detail is worth copying.\nDefeating Ula'tek drops the Venomous Abyss trophy decor for every raid member at 100 percent,\non every difficulty. Heroic adds a second trophy and Mythic a third. A guaranteed drop rather\nthan a chance is the right way round for a cosmetic. It pays the group that finished the raid,\nrather than the one lucky person in it.
\nCredit where it is due: Raider.IO is where a lot of groups will actually\nwatch those rating thresholds move.
\nAfter the week of 8 September the season has no further scheduled unlocks. The next dated\nWarcraft event is BlizzCon, which is Blizzard's own convention, on 12 and 13 September. Its\npublished running order\ncarries a "World of Warcraft: What's Next" session and a second one numbered II. Both sit on\nthe calendar with the day we last checked them.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-01T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/patches/midnight-season-2-unlock-schedule/", "summary": "World of Warcraft's Midnight Season 2 opened over five weekly steps rather than one day. The full timeline, what each week added, and the date outstanding.", "title": "WoW's Midnight Season 2 finishes unlocking on 8 September", "url": "https://0hp.com/patches/midnight-season-2-unlock-schedule/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "RuneScape's September Patch Week landed on 1 September 2026. Its longest section is\nhousekeeping for Leagues, a temporary game mode with fresh characters and its own rules. The\nline most players will feel sits in the housing block of\nJagex's own patch notes: the 300\nfurniture limit in a player house is being enforced again, with a warning on entry for anyone\nalready over it.
\nA player-owned house, to be plain about it, is a building each player customises and fills\nwith useful rooms. It is a long-running side system in this game, and most of what goes in it\nis there for the look of the thing.
\nSix names in the table need a line each.
\nThey are all the game's own words. Dungeoneering is the skill built around descending a\nrandomised dungeon. Prayer and Summoning are two more\nskills, one powering protective blessings and one calling creatures to fight beside you. A\nGodsword is a family of powerful two-handed weapons named for the game's gods. Miscellania is\nan island players manage for a steady supply of resources. Anachronia, in the hotfix row, is\none of the game's islands. Anachronia, in the hotfix row, is\none of the game's islands. Anachronia, in the hotfix row, is\none of the game's islands.
\n| Area | \nChange | \n
|---|---|
| Player houses | \n300 furniture cap enforced again with an entry warning, bigger limit promised, undated | \n
| Player houses | \nMiscellania table recipe from Royal Trouble, Ports table recipe in the Ports Reward Shop | \n
| Dungeoneering Remastered | \nPrayer and Summoning doors capped at 99, Follow the Leader completable after a party member leaves, bound blastboxes and surgeboxes no longer lost on floor completion | \n
| Leagues II Equilibrium | \nEleven quests and area tasks auto-completed, five quests and six tasks, divine boons at half energy with the Divine Druid relic, poison-only kills now award experience and drops | \n
| Leagues, hotfixed | \nThe Leagues rare drop boost now applies to Godsword shards in the God Wars Dungeon, Clue Connoisseur gives 3 charges per outfit piece, Anachronia's base camp tutorial auto-completes on region unlock | \n
| General | \nSoul altar no longer demands a pure essence in the inventory, items sold to Tom's Trove buyable back, chicks added to four farms | \n
Take the good first, because there is a lot of it and it all points the same way.
\nAuto-completing a quest a Leagues player cannot reasonably do, rather than making them do it,\nis the correct call every time. Eleven auto-completes went in this week: five quests and six\narea tasks, plus one more in the hotfix block for Anachronia's base camp tutorial. Alongside\nthose came a fix so enemies killed only with poison award experience and drops, and a Wiki\nbutton that now points at the Equilibrium page. That is a team watching a temporary game mode\nand clearing the potholes as players hit them, which is what a seasonal mode needs and rarely\ngets.
\nThe housing cap is the other thing. Enforcing an existing 300 item limit again is not a nerf\non paper. Our reading is that in practice it is one. The patch note adds a warning "on entry\nto any players above this", which is Jagex confirming those houses exist. A warning on entry,\nno way to raise the ceiling, and a bigger limit described only as coming soon, leaves those\nplayers holding a house the game now flags as a problem. Housing is exactly the kind of\nlong-horizon, no-power, purely-for-love system that keeps people subscribed to old games. It\ndeserves a date rather than a promise.
\nCredit where the source gives it. Jagex points at Mod Yuey streaming Dragon trophy tips on 3\nSeptember alongside Maikeru and RSWillmissit. Mod is the prefix a Jagex staff member's public name\ncarries. The notes also highlight community work by Casillio, Artwle, Bucket\nCultist, Wings of Absurdity, Lily and SaltyxRs. The Pink Skirts run their usual week of open\nevents, including Vorago, one of the game's boss fights, on 6 September.
\nThe Month Ahead for September was due mid-week, and the community API and plugin update from\nMod Fable has moved to the week of the seventh. An API is the interface community tools use to\nwork with the game. Neither is a dated commitment, so neither joins\nthe calendar until Jagex gives a day.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-09-01T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/patches/rs3-september-patch-week-house-limit/", "summary": "September Patch Week auto-completed eleven Leagues quests and tasks, and warned any player house over 300 items. A bigger limit is promised, with no date.", "title": "RuneScape starts enforcing a 300 furniture limit in player houses again", "url": "https://0hp.com/patches/rs3-september-patch-week-house-limit/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "World of Warcraft's Curse of Ula'tek update went live on 11 August 2026.\nBlizzard's own summary\nleads with the Coiled Isle: a new outdoor area off the east coast of Zul'Aman, with an\neight-boss raid, a three-boss dungeon and three new delves behind it. The raid arrived a week\nlater.
\nThree words worth unpacking. A raid is a dungeon built for a large group, usually the hardest\nthing a game has. Delves are the small solo version. Zul'Aman is a region long-standing players\nalready know, so the isle sits somewhere familiar.
\n| Piece | \nDetail | \nLive from | \n
|---|---|---|
| The Coiled Isle | \nPublic events, Curse Surges, cursed fishing, an isle-only talent tree | \n11 August | \n
| Altar of Fangs | \nThree bosses, up to Mythic 0 (Mythic is the hardest difficulty setting) | \n11 August | \n
| Lairs | \nWorld bosses moved into private instanced fights; the notes describe scaling up to flexible Mythic with 15 to 25 players | \n11 August | \n
| Three delves | \nThe Ring of Glory, Gnarldor Isle, and Venomfall Deeps as a Nemesis one | \n11 August | \n
| The Venomous Abyss | \nEight bosses, Ula'tek last | \n18 August, with Season 2 | \n
| Mythic+ rotation | \nAltar of Fangs joins seven others | \n18 August, with Season 2 | \n
Two changes in this update outlive the season around them, and neither of them is the raid.
\nThe first is the Discord link. Discord is the chat app a great many guilds already run on the\nside. Connecting a Battle.net account to a Discord one and passing messages both ways closes a\ngap guilds have long papered over with a second app. It changes nothing about how the\ngame plays and quite a lot about who reads guild chat, because the people who miss a raid\nsignup are the ones not logged in. Unglamorous plumbing, and the best thing in the patch.
\nThe second is housing blueprints, and this is the one we will actually praise. Exporting a\nwhole house, an interior, an exterior or a single room and handing it to another player turns\ndecorating from a private hobby into something shareable. The detail that makes it usable is\nthe import screen: it lists what you are missing and still lets you import. A reset option puts\neverything back in storage, so experimenting costs nothing.
\nNote what is not there. Nothing in Blizzard's summary attaches a charge to any part of it. No\nshop entry, no bundle, no currency. In a genre where housing is very often the first thing put\nbehind a shop, a sharing feature arriving with no price on it is worth saying out loud.
\nThe area design earns a line too. Killing a rare tough monster at a Curse Surge unlocks cursed\nfishing in that spot, which chains a combat activity into a quiet one rather than running them\nin parallel. Those monsters rotate across five locations, so the isle rewards moving rather than\ncamping. A world that pays you for walking around in it is a world rather than a menu.
\nCredit where it is due: Wowhead is where the community documents\nthe blueprint format and the rare rotation.
\nThe last dated step of this content cycle is the fourth Raid Finder wing, which is one chunk of\nthe Venomous Abyss opened to the automatic queue that puts strangers into an easier version of\nit. Blizzard's own\nMidnight Season 2 schedule\nputs that wing in the week of 8 September.
\nAfter that the next Warcraft date is BlizzCon, which is Blizzard's own convention, and we have\nits dates and its running order in\nour piece on the schedule. Both sit on\nthe calendar with the day we last checked them.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-08-31T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/patches/curse-of-ulatek-coiled-isle/", "summary": "The Coiled Isle update went live on 11 August with a new outdoor area, shareable housing layouts and Discord messaging. Its eight-boss raid opened a week later.", "title": "WoW's Curse of Ula'tek adds an island, an eight-boss raid and a Discord link", "url": "https://0hp.com/patches/curse-of-ulatek-coiled-isle/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "The combat team behind The Elder Scrolls Online went back into Update 51 and rewrote its\nbalance pass. Players had spent two weeks hammering the public test server, which is a copy of\nthe game where changes are tried before release. The team says so plainly in\nits own post on 13 August:\nthese adjustments answer that feedback, and were not originally planned.
\nThat is a rare admission, and it is why this list is worth reading closely. A quick primer for\nanyone who has not played. You pick a class, which is the kit of skills your character fights\nwith. ZeniMax is rebuilding those classes one at a time. Update 51 is the next free patch, and\na balance pass is the round of number changes that decides which classes feel strong.
\n| Class | \nChange | \n
|---|---|
| Dragonknight (a fire and earth themed class) | \nCore of Flame 12% missing resources (was 15%), Heart of Flame healing down 20%, Landslide builds faster and stacks to 12, Seething Fury halved in player-versus-player, Power Lash damage down | \n
| Templar (a light and healing themed class) | \nBalanced Warrior uncapped and now rewards slotting Templar skills, Judgment's Brand 1600 bonus damage (was 1400), Aetheric Lancer's area effect spawns on a stationary caster | \n
| Nightblade (a stealth themed class) | \nStrife grants 1% damage per 10% of current health while active; the cost increases stay under review | \n
| Necromancer (a class that raises the dead) | \nNothing Wasted loses 2 stacks instead of 3 but decays every 12 seconds without generating a corpse (was 15), Pummeling Goliath's bash gains a 1-second cooldown and about 73% more damage, Frozen Colossus 12.5% more damage and costs 150 ultimate (down), both to be reverted in a future update | \n
| Warden (a nature and ice themed class) | \nFetcher Infection 75% every other cast (was 60%), Arctic Blast about 20% more per tick | \n
| Sets and skills | \nDraugrkin's healing reduction halved in player-versus-player and its bonuses moved to weapon and spell damage, Ice Comet about 21% more damage over time and now snares on every hit | \n
Two bits of vocabulary for that table. A stack is a counter a skill builds up as you use it. An\nultimate is a powerful ability you charge up before you can cast it.
\nCredit first, because it belongs to the testers rather than the studio.
\nNothing in that table exists without the people who spent two weeks on a test server writing up\nwhat was wrong. ZeniMax naming that feedback as the cause is the honest thing to do. A public\ntest server is unpaid labour that makes a live patch better, and it deserves to be described\nthat way.
\nThe substance is a studio admitting that rebuilding classes one at a time was always going to\nbreak fights between players. Dragonknight and Werewolf got their refreshes before the others,\nand the post names their "prevalence and often dominance" in that space. Werewolf is a\ntransformation skill line a character can carry alongside their class. The team says part of\nthat is inevitable by nature of going first. It is. That is exactly the argument against\nshipping a rework class by class in a game where players fight each other. Everyone on a class\nthat has not had its turn waits on a schedule they did not choose.
\nThe Warden entry is the one that should worry people. A class the studio says is still\nmid-rework gets two number tweaks and a note saying they do not indicate where it will end up.\nThe next stage of that rework has already moved to 2027. That is a long stretch of playing a\nclass the developers agree is not finished, and no amount of Fetcher Infection damage closes\nthe gap.
\nThe Necromancer bash change is the quiet good one. The post says it is aimed at correcting the need to\ndouble bash weave, which is the fiddly habit of squeezing two bashes in between other\nabilities, and gives one harder hit instead. ZeniMax says plainly that this "will nerf some of\nthe ceiling potential", and that it is fine with that based on the logs. Our view is that\ntrading a little top-end power for a far less fiddly ability is the right way round.
\nUpdate 51 lands on 28 September 2026, a week later than first announced\n(the studio director's letter).\nThe next stage of the class and combat rework is now targeted at 2027. Both sit on\nthe calendar and the release tracker with the day we last checked\neach.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-08-31T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/patches/eso-update-51-pts-combat-changes/", "summary": "Dragonknight burst cut, Warden nudged, Templar rebuilt. The Update 51 combat changes ZeniMax says were never originally planned, listed with their numbers.", "title": "ESO's combat team rewrote Update 51's balance pass after test-server feedback", "url": "https://0hp.com/patches/eso-update-51-pts-combat-changes/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Old School RuneScape's Bronzeman vote got more yes votes than no votes and still failed. A\nchange put to a vote in this game needs 70 percent to pass, which is a much higher bar than a\nsimple majority.\nJagex's own post-vote note,\npublished 21 August 2026, confirms the majority and the shortfall.
\nTwo things to know if you have never played. Jagex, which is the studio behind the game, puts\nbig proposed changes to a public vote, and the cache for this one says the Bronzeman poll\n"fell short of the required 70% supermajority". Bronzeman is a self-imposed mode that blocks\nbuying from other players.
\n| \n | Detail | \n
|---|---|
| Result | \nMajority yes, below the 70% bar | \n
| Threshold | \n70%, described by Jagex as the required supermajority for this poll | \n
| Studio's advance knowledge | \nJagex says it can see results before they are public, and prepared for this outcome | \n
| Immediate action | \nIn-game survey, live from 11:15 UTC on 21 August | \n
| Proposed change | \nAn optional question in future votes asking why a player voted as they did | \n
| Next step | \nAn update once the studio is confident what, if anything, should happen | \n
We are going to defend the threshold, and then criticise how it was used.
\nA 70 percent bar is the single most valuable thing this game has. It is why the world still\nfeels like something its players own rather than a product shipped at them, and it is why a\nstudio cannot quietly reshape it in a direction the community hates. A mode that more than\nhalf of voters wanted and fewer than seven in ten did is exactly the case the bar exists for.\nJagex publishes no percentage, only "a majority" and the shortfall. The bar held. Good.
\nWhere we would push back is the design of the vote rather than its outcome. Jagex said it saw\nthe result coming and had prepared for it, and that it now wants to ask people why they voted.\nAsking why after the fact is a survey. Asking why on the ballot is data. The studio's own note\nsays this information is "now much easier for us to process with the improved polling system\nwe have", which raises the obvious question of why a proposal this contested went out without\nit. A failed vote costs the community the wait and costs the studio the work, and both are\navoidable when the disagreement is legible in advance.
\nThe tone deserves credit. Jagex asks everyone to focus on "where did we go wrong, and what\nneeds to change in the future". That is the right target. Our reading is that the mode failed\nbecause the pitch did not answer the objections, and blaming voters would have been the easy\nmove.
\nFor anyone tracking the discussion, the studio points at the 2007Scape subreddit, the Steam\nforums and its Discord, and at\nthe Old School RuneScape Wiki for the reference material.
\nNothing is dated. The survey opened at 11:15 UTC on 21 August, with no close given. Jagex said it would return with\nan update once it knew what should happen, and as of writing it has not. So\nthe calendar carries nothing for Bronzeman, and will not until there is a day to\ncarry.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-08-31T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/osrs-bronzeman-poll-supermajority/", "summary": "Jagex's Bronzeman vote won a majority and missed the 70 percent bar the game requires. The studio opened an in-game survey the same day to find out why.", "title": "Bronzeman won a majority in Old School RuneScape and lost anyway", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/osrs-bronzeman-poll-supermajority/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Update 51 for The Elder Scrolls Online lands on 28 September 2026, a week later than\nZeniMax first said. Three things have moved out of 2026 altogether. The change\ncame on 30 July in\na letter from game director Nick Giacomini,\npublished alongside a round of studio changes.
\nIf you have never played it: The Elder Scrolls Online is a fantasy game thousands of people\nshare, and an update is a free patch that adds areas, systems and fixes for everyone. Season\nOne is the game's name for this stretch of the year and the content grouped inside it.
\nThe letter puts a principle before a date: quality experiences over calendar dates. Here is\nwhat that costs, in dates.
\nThe letter gives one old date and one new one. Update 51 "will now launch one week later, on\nSeptember 28". The 21 September in the first column below is that week subtracted, not a date\nZeniMax restates.
\n| Feature | \nWas | \nNow | \n
|---|---|---|
| Update 51 | \none week earlier, so 21 September 2026 by our subtraction | \n28 September 2026 | \n
| Nowhere Vault | \nwith Update 51 | \n28 September 2026, with Update 51 | \n
| Rumors system | \nwith Update 51 | \n28 September 2026, with Update 51 | \n
| Player experience improvements | \nwith Update 51 | \n28 September 2026, with Update 51 | \n
| Three-sided Battlegrounds (arenas where players fight each other) | \nno date stated | \n28 September 2026, permanently | \n
| Crimson Veldt trial (a trial is this game's word for a big-group raid dungeon) | \nno date stated | \n2027 | \n
| Update 52 | \nno date stated | \nJanuary 2027 | \n
| Class and combat refresh, next stage | \nno date stated | \ntargeted at 2027 | \n
Everything else in Season One runs as planned. The letter adds a Golden Pursuit campaign, which\nis a rotating list of in-game tasks that pay shop rewards, called "Straight to the Crate", from\n20 August to 17 September. It also dates a High Seas of Tamriel event from 30 September to 14\nOctober. Tamriel is the continent the whole series is set on. Season Two is dated 21 October\n2026.
\nA week is not much. The rest of the list is, and the letter is more honest than it had to be.
\nThe Crimson Veldt is the biggest thing on the list. A trial is this game's word for a raid,\nwhich is a dungeon built for a large group and usually the hardest thing a game has. The letter\nsays it is pushing boundaries with mounted combat. That is the sort of feature a raiding guild\nplans months around. Moving it into 2027 with no date attached leaves the Nowhere Vault as the\nhardest new thing Season One offers. The group that was waiting will now be waiting past the\nNew Life Festival, which the letter itself puts inside Season Two. Our reading is that a\nfeature this size sliding out of the season it was announced in costs a studio trust it cannot\nbuy back.
\nThe class and combat rework is the quieter loss. A class is the kit of skills your character\nfights with, and ZeniMax is rebuilding them one at a time. The letter says the studio is\n"targeting 2027 for the next refresh", and that it is discussing "some interim options for the\nclasses still awaiting their full refresh".
\nA rework that runs one class at a time is a balance problem the whole time it runs, and that is\nour reading rather than the letter's. Stretch the window into 2027 and you stretch the problem\nwith it. The people paying for that are everyone still waiting on a rework. We wrote up what\nthe combat team itself said two weeks later in\nour piece on the Update 51 test-server changes.
\nThe studio context is in the letter too, unprompted: organizational changes, departures, and a\nleadership arrangement in which Giacomini runs the studio alongside Josh Henderson. That is the\nreason given for the schedule. It is more useful to know than the schedule itself, because it\nis the thing that predicts the next one. Publishing it rather than letting a date slip quietly\nis the right call, and we would rather have this letter than a cheerful one.
\nCredit where it is due: the Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages\nare where the community documents this game's class changes patch by patch.
\nEvery one of those sits on the calendar with the day it was last checked. The two\nwith no firm date are on the release tracker rather than written up as though\nthey had one.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-08-30T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/patches/eso-update-51-moves-to-28-september/", "summary": "ZeniMax pushed Update 51 back a week, and moved both the Crimson Veldt raid and Update 52 into 2027. The dates that changed, side by side, in plain words.", "title": "ESO Update 51 slips a week to 28 September, and two big features slide into 2027", "url": "https://0hp.com/patches/eso-update-51-moves-to-28-september/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Jagex, which is the studio behind Old School RuneScape, is running a live creator event in\nLondon on Saturday 5 September 2026, streamed from 14:00 to 19:30 UTC.\nIts own announcement\nis refreshingly clear that this aims at something more relaxed than a polished esports\ntournament. Twelve Old School RuneScape creators, four\nteams, in-game and real-world challenges, and viewers voting on how badly to sabotage them.
\nLANscape, which is what the studio calls the event, is its own in-person day where creators\nplay in one room. The four teams are named after gods in the game's world: Saradomin, Zamorak,\nBandos and Guthix.
\n| Team | \nCreators | \n
|---|---|
| Saradomin | \nPurpp, Potatohime, Mr Mammal | \n
| Zamorak | \nSoloMission, Tastylife, Sardaco | \n
| Bandos | \nSkill Specs, Katerena, Sick Nerd | \n
| Guthix | \nB0aty, Megan, MMORPG (a creator's handle here, not the genre) | \n
The in-game rounds run on a special event world, which is a separate copy of the game where\nJagex can change rules it would never touch on the live one. There is a team tileman challenge\nscored on crossing as few tiles as possible. There is a boss relay of familiar bosses, one or two of which Jagex says may catch the teams\noff guard.\nThere is a barrage race across Gielinor, the world the game is set in, with obstacles thrown\nin. There is hide and seek. And there is a final showdown where players fight each other, where Jagex says points earned\nearlier could help teams buy upgrades.
\nAway from the keyboard there are gnome gliders, giant Jenga, cup-stacking and carnival games.\nThe announcement lists all of those as challenges Jagex is "looking at" rather than confirming.\nSoup and J1mmy host.
\nThis is the right way to spend a Saturday on a game this old, and the reason is the part that\nsounds like a joke.
\nThe event world is the news. Jagex is making rule changes it describes as deeply irresponsible\nanywhere near the main game, which is only possible because the studio is willing to build a\nthrowaway ruleset for one afternoon. Most publishers would either run the event inside the live\ngame with the handbrake on, or build a competitive format only the very best players\nrecognise. A tileman race and a game of hide and seek make sense to anybody who has ever\nplayed this game, and that is exactly why they will draw an audience.
\nGiving the vote to Twitch chat is the other good decision. Handing viewers the power to split a\nteammate's mouse and keyboard, or take away somebody's F-keys at the worst possible second,\nmakes the audience a participant rather than a metric. It also, quietly, makes the competition\nunfair on purpose, which removes any pressure to treat it as a ranking.
\nCredit is the whole point of the event, so we will pass it on. Purpp, Potatohime, Mr Mammal,\nSoloMission, Tastylife, Sardaco, Skill Specs, Katerena, Sick Nerd, B0aty, Megan and MMORPG are\nthe twelve competing. Soup and J1mmy are hosting. Jagex thanks The Skulled for the\nannouncement video. A game stays alive this long because those people keep showing up.
\nThe stream runs 14:00 to 19:30 UTC on 5 September, on the Old School RuneScape Twitch\nchannel. Jagex says some participating creators may also stream their own perspectives. The date is on\nthe calendar with the day we last checked it against Jagex's page.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-08-30T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/osrs-lanscape-5-september/", "summary": "LANscape streams from London on 5 September, 14:00 to 19:30 UTC. Four teams, in-game and real-world challenges, and viewer votes deciding the handicaps.", "title": "Old School RuneScape puts twelve creators in a room and lets chat sabotage them", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/osrs-lanscape-5-september/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Throne and Liberty's update 4.9.0 followed roughly three hours of downtime, which the notes\nsaid would begin at 10:30 p.m. Pacific on 26 August 2026. The\npatch notes on Steam\nare dominated by a single theme. Most of what happens in Nix, which is the region of the map\nwhere the current content lives, now takes less time, fewer people, or both.
\nThrone and Liberty is a fantasy world made by NCSOFT, which is a Korean studio, and released in\nthe West by Amazon Games, Amazon's own game division. The Tumgir Vault below is an instanced\ndungeon inside Nix, and a Skill Core is an equippable item that changes how one of your skills\nworks.
\n| Where | \nChange | \n
|---|---|
| Tumgir Vault | \nChest interaction time down 30%, Skill Core acquisition down 50%, elevator sequences down 40% | \n
| Tumgir Vault | \nCrowd control removed from named enemies on floors 2 and 4 and reduced on floor 3; the Frost effect removed on floor 1 | \n
| Ritual of Frost | \nFrost Curses per magic circle down from 29 to 9 | \n
| Frozen Moment | \nThree waves down to two, survival per wave up from 45 to 60 seconds | \n
| Tumgir Hollow | \nWater Energy requirement down from 15 to 10, geyser reactivation 60% faster | \n
| Scarlet Dream, Primal Trial, Hall of Repentance and others | \nMaximum participants cut from 6 to 3 | \n
| Remnants of Nix | \nMasarax now spawns at a fixed location with a 30% chance at 15 minutes, more rewards, less difficulty | \n
Crowd control, in that second row, is the family of effects that stun, freeze or otherwise stop\nyou acting.
\nThe cuts are the right call, and the reason for them is not flattering.
\nInstanced events that allowed up to six players now cap at three, and the interaction timers\ncome down by 30 to 60 percent. The notes give the changes and no reason for them. Our reading\nis a studio concluding that content gated on assembling six people was gating on something its\nplayers could not supply. Better to fix it than leave it standing empty, and the fixes are\nreal: faster chests, fewer curses, fewer waves, and Masarax now spawning in a fixed spot\ninstead of a random one.
\nWhat we will not wave through is the note at the bottom about the Battle Pass, which is this\ngame's seasonal reward track and has a paid tier. Alongside Battle Pass: Smoldering Vow, the\nupdate says that moving forward, Battle Pass event shops will contain a Premium section. It\nsells extra Trait Unlockstone Fragments, Trait Enchantment Stone Fragments and Heroic Trait\nUnlockstone Fragments to players who have bought the Premium Pass. A Trait is a small permanent bonus attached to a piece of gear, so those are\ncharacter power materials rather than cosmetics. Putting more of them behind a purchase is the\nplainest form of paying for strength there is. A game that has just spent a patch making its\ncontent reachable should not spend the same patch making its progression purchasable.
\nThe Snowsoul tier deserves a flag of its own, for a different reason. A new weapon rank above\nAscended Archboss gear, crafted from the weapon you already own, resets the top of the ladder\nfor everyone who finished the last one. An Archboss is the game's largest open-world boss,\nfought by many players at once. That is the treadmill working as designed, and it is at least\nearned through Ascended Deluzhnoa and Ascended Giant Cordy rather than sold.
\nBy the same notes, Vegamor has moved to the end of September and the Primordial Wanderer\nmilestone now ends 24 September 2026. Both dates are on the calendar with the\nday we last checked them. The handover of this game's Western publishing, which we covered\nfrom Amazon's own announcement, is on the sunset tracker.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-08-30T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/patches/throne-and-liberty-4-9-0-nix-difficulty/", "summary": "Update 4.9.0 added a weapon tier above the top one, cut difficulty across the Nix region, and put purchasable power materials behind the paid reward track.", "title": "Throne and Liberty's 4.9.0 makes the Nix region easier almost everywhere", "url": "https://0hp.com/patches/throne-and-liberty-4-9-0-nix-difficulty/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Black Temple, which is a big-group dungeon from an old World of Warcraft expansion, opened on\nthe Burning Crusade Classic Anniversary Edition servers on 27 August 2026. It arrived\nalongside the Battle for Mount Hyjal, the Netherwing daily quest hub and epic gems.\nBlizzard's own notice\nlists them together under what it calls your journey ahead, and puts Arena Season 3 five days\nlater on 1 September.
\nThe short version for anyone who has never played. Burning Crusade Classic, which is a\nre-release of the game's first expansion, runs on its own servers so people can play it as it\nwas. Each of Black Temple and Mount Hyjal is a raid, which is the game's word for a dungeon\nbuilt for a large group. The\nCaverns of Time, where the second one sits, is the in-game hub that leads to dungeons set in\nthe game's own past. Netherwing is a faction you build standing with to earn a flying mount.\nAnd an arena season is a numbered stretch of ranked small-team fighting, with its own gear.
\n| \n | Black Temple | \nBattle for Mount Hyjal | \n
|---|---|---|
| Level | \n70 | \n70 | \n
| Location | \nShadowmoon Valley, Outland | \nCaverns of Time, Tanaris | \n
| Bosses | \n9, ending on Illidan Stormrage | \n5, ending on Archimonde | \n
| Reputation | \nAshtongue Deathsworn | \nScale of the Sands | \n
| Gate | \nAn attunement chain | \nThe Vials of Eternity questline | \n
| Extra vendor | \nOkuno, inside the raid | \nIndormi, inside the raid | \n
An attunement is a chain of quests you finish before the game lets you in at all. Indormi is\nthe row to note for anyone not raiding: the jewelcrafting designs for the new epic gems sell\nfrom inside Mount Hyjal, and the gems themselves come from mining in that raid at 375 skill or\nas rare drops in Black Temple. Blizzard's notice also says a raid group is not required to\nenter Mount Hyjal.
\nThe arena rollover is the part with a deadline on it, and it has already passed for anyone\nholding points. Season 2 closed the week of 16 August, at 10:00 pm local time the night before\neach region's reset. Unspent Arena Points, which is the currency earned in ranked small-team\nmatches, turned into Honor Points at ten each. Honor is the older currency, earned from\nfighting other players out in the world.
\nThat is a conversion rather than a refund, and we think it is the wrong way round. Points\nsaved for a Season 3 purchase became honor, which buys a different and older set of gear.\nAnyone who did the disciplined thing and banked their points for the next tier was paid out in\nthe currency for the last one. The people who spent theirs immediately lost nothing. A\nrollover that punishes patience is a small unfairness with a real cost, and it was avoidable.
\nThe upside of the same rollover is genuinely good, and worth being loud about, because it is\nthe opposite of how a lot of this genre now solves the same problem. Two tiers of\nplayer-versus-player gear dropped their gates at once. Season 2 gear now sells at a discount\nfrom Area 52 with no rating requirement, and Season 1 gear moved to the Honor vendors in\nOrgrimmar and Stormwind. For a player arriving late to this phase that is a cheap way\nback in, and it costs time rather than money. No\nboost, no bundle, no shop page. A vendor and an afternoon.
\nNetherwing is the long tail and it makes no apology for it. The standing comes from daily\nquests on Netherwing Ledge. That is a floating outpost in southeastern Shadowmoon Valley, which the notice says needs a flying mount to reach, or a\nwillingness to take a very strategic fall. The six Netherwing Drake colours all need exalted standing, artisan\nriding, and the Blood Oath of the Netherwing step of the quest chain. Nothing about that chain\nis fast. That is the point of putting it in beside a raid tier. It is the sort of reward that\nstill means something a year later, precisely because nobody can shortcut it.
\nCredit where it is due: Blizzard's own notice links a community guide for the Netherwing\nchain, and Wowhead is where a lot of players will check the\nsteps.
\nThe anniversary servers have no further dated phase in Blizzard's notice. The next Warcraft\ndate on the record is BlizzCon, which is Blizzard's own convention, on 12 and 13\nSeptember. Its\npublished running order\ncarries three forward-looking Warcraft sessions, one of them for Hardcore, the mode where a\ncharacter who dies is gone for good. Both days are on the calendar with the day\nwe last checked them.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-08-29T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/launches/bcc-anniversary-black-temple-arena-season-3/", "summary": "Two big group dungeons opened on the Anniversary Edition servers: Black Temple and Mount Hyjal, plus Netherwing dailies, epic gems and a new arena season.", "title": "Black Temple opens on WoW's Burning Crusade Classic servers, with a new arena season", "url": "https://0hp.com/launches/bcc-anniversary-black-temple-arena-season-3/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "EVE Online, which is a long-running science-fiction game about spaceships, is taking apart the\nmost established screen in it. And\nits second design blog\nis unusually explicit about the order. An opt-in phase, then a long opt-out phase, then a full\nswitch only once adoption is high. A first version is aimed at the next expansion, with\nno date attached.
\nThe screen in question is the HUD, which is the set of bars and buttons drawn over the game.\nAt its centre is the medallion, a round dial carrying your ship's speed, its health, its heat,\nand its capacitor, which is the energy pool that powers guns, shields and engines. A module is a piece\nof equipment fitted to a ship and switched on and off in combat. To overload one is to run it\npast its safe limit for extra power and some damage. And the minimap is the small radar view\nshowing what is near your ship.
\nThe studio is Fenris Creations, which is the company behind the game. It took that name when\nit\nannounced on 6 May 2026 that it was becoming independent again.
\n| Element | \nChange | \nStage | \n
|---|---|---|
| Speed | \nMoves out of the medallion into its own controls | \nFirst | \n
| Health | \nShield, armour and hull stay around the capacitor, with clearer proportions and possible ticks | \nFirst | \n
| Capacitor | \nKeeps its circle, gains a gauge showing how fast energy is gained or lost | \nFirst | \n
| Rack heat | \nMoves beside the medallion, pointing at the rack it belongs to | \nFirst | \n
| Overload (running a module past its safe limit) | \nBecomes its own interaction; Shift-click is preserved | \nFirst | \n
| Modules | \nClearer active and inactive states, a moving cycle indicator, discoverable shortcuts | \nFirst | \n
| Minimap | \nOn-grid, metro and system views | \nSecond | \n
| Boosters | \nDedicated consumable slots with shortcuts | \nThird | \n
| Customisation | \nHUD as movable components, hideable parts | \nFourth | \n
One row there needs a word: boosters, which are consumable drugs that raise a pilot's stats\nfor a while.
\nThe rollout plan is better than the redesign, and the redesign looks good.
\nAn opt-in phase, then an opt-out phase the studio itself expects to run long, then a switch\nonly once adoption is high. That is how you change an interface people have spent years\nlearning without taking those reflexes away from them. Compare it with the industry\nnorm of shipping a new screen on patch day and learning from the forums afterwards. Nobody's\nFriday night fleet gets ruined by a redesign they did not ask for, and the studio still gets\nits modernisation.
\nThe research is credited where it belongs, and that should be noted. New players were brought\nin to be watched. Veterans were interviewed. There were sessions with the player-elected\ncouncil the blog calls the CSM, plus a workshop and a booth at Fanfest, which is the game's\nown convention. The single most useful finding in the\nwhole blog came from watching newcomers fail to realise the security status element was a\nbutton at all. A designer does not find that by thinking harder.
\nOur one reservation is sequencing. Customisation is the thing veterans have asked for longest,\nand it is the answer to the screen space a minimap and consumable slots will eat. It is\nexplicitly last. Screen space is a real cost in a game played in several windows at once, and\nshipping the parts that take room before the parts that let you hide them is the wrong order\nfor the people most likely to opt in early.
\nA third blog is promised, covering what comes after this work. The first round of HUD changes\nis targeted at the next expansion with no announced date, so nothing here joins\nthe calendar yet.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-08-29T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/eve-online-hud-rebuild-opt-in/", "summary": "EVE's second design blog splits its central dial apart, adds a minimap and slots for consumables, and promises an opt-in phase before anybody is moved onto it.", "title": "EVE Online is rebuilding the screen you fly by, and you can opt out for a long time", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/eve-online-hud-rebuild-opt-in/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Black Desert opened three dated events at once on 27 August 2026, and\nthe event post from Pearl Abyss, which is the studio behind the game,\nruns the longest of them out to November. The one with a competitive deadline is the Guild\nLeague, which is a scheduled competition where guilds fight each other. Its regular season\ncloses on 23 September.
\nBlack Desert, if you have not played it, is an action-combat fantasy world made by Pearl\nAbyss. Guilds are player-run clubs, and the Guild League is fought between them.
\n| Event | \nRuns | \nWhat it gives | \n
|---|---|---|
| Guild League regular season | \n27 Aug to 23 Sep 2026 | \nFaster-paced format, rebuilt rules, rewards at 3, 6 and 12 total victories | \n
| Sailing and barter hot time | \n27 Aug to 10 Sep 2026 | \n+100% sailing experience, +100% barter experience, double sailor experience from monsters on the Great Ocean | \n
| Olvia Academy combat boost (servers with boosted rewards for new and returning players) | \n27 Aug to 12 Nov 2026 | \nOrdered quest chain giving cron meals, perfumes and selectable harmony draughts | \n
A hot time is the game's word for a limited window with boosted rewards. The Olvia Academy is\nthe game's programme for new and returning players, named after one of its starting towns.
\nGuild League's reward tiers are the Thankful Premium Outfit Box, 1,500 Cron Stones and an\nUltimate Premium Enhancement Box, at three, six and twelve victories. Cron Stones are\nconsumables that stop a piece of gear breaking when you try to upgrade it.
\nThree windows of three very different lengths is a scheduling choice, and it tells you what\nthe studio wants you doing.
\nThe hot time is two weeks and doubles a grind: sailing and barter experience, barter being the\ngame's system of trading goods between islands, plus double sailor experience from monsters\nkilled on the Great Ocean, which is its open sea. Short\nwindows on multipliers are the least objectionable kind of event, because the reward is time\nsaved on something you were going to do anyway rather than power you could not otherwise get.\nThe Great Ocean is one of this game's genuinely world-shaped systems, and paying people to go\nout there is a reasonable use of a fortnight.
\nGuild League is the interesting one. Rewards tiered at three, six and twelve victories over\nfour weeks mean the ceiling is reachable by a guild that turns up, rather than only by a guild\nthat wins constantly. And 1,500 Cron Stones at the second tier is a serious amount of upgrade\ninsurance handed to the middle of the ladder rather than the top. Rewarding participation over\ndominance is how a competitive mode keeps enough guilds in it to stay competitive.
\nThe Olvia chain running eleven weeks is aimed squarely at people who are not here yet, and it\nis the longest of the three by a distance. Our reading of that gap is a game spending a lot of\neffort pulling newcomers and lapsed players in, and comparatively little on the players\nalready climbing.
\nThe sailing hot time closes on 10 September, Guild League on 23 September and the\nOlvia chain on 12 November. All three are on the calendar with the day we\nlast checked them.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-08-28T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/bdo-guild-league-season-to-23-september/", "summary": "Pearl Abyss opened a rebuilt Guild League season plus a sailing and barter bonus window, with three dated events running from August into November.", "title": "Black Desert's Guild League season runs to 23 September", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/bdo-guild-league-season-to-23-september/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "RuneScape: Dragonwilds, which is Jagex's survival game set in the RuneScape world, leaves\nearly access and launches in full on 15 September 2026. It arrives on PC, PlayStation 5 and\nXbox Series X and S at the same time. The date has been set since 5 June, when the studio\nannounced it during the Summer Game Fest Live showcase,\nand that page still carries it unchanged.
\nThree things from that sentence. Jagex, which is the studio behind RuneScape itself, makes it.\nEarly access is a paid unfinished release players buy into before launch. And a survival game\nis one about gathering, building and staying alive; this one has skills to level as well.
\n| \n | Early access | \n1.0, from 15 September | \n
|---|---|---|
| Platforms | \nPC (Steam) | \nPC (Steam and Epic Games Store), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S | \n
| Console release | \nnone | \nat the same time as PC | \n
| Headline content | \nthe road to the Dragon Queen, most recently update 0.12.1 | \nthe Scorned Wilderness update, plus all content from the Umbral Sands expansion | \n
| Sales, as stated | \nover one million during early access | \nnot restated | \n
The Dragon Queen, in that table, is the figure the current story builds towards. Jagex calls\nthe Scorned Wilderness an update and Umbral Sands an expansion.
\nTwo facts are worth carrying out of that table. The console launch happens at the same time as\nthe PC one, which Jagex calls a first for the game. And 1.0 is not a re-release of what early\naccess already had: the release says it includes the brand-new Scorned Wilderness update\nalongside all content from the Umbral Sands expansion, which it dates only as "arriving later\nthis Summer".
\nDragonwilds is not one of the big shared online worlds this site usually covers, and it is not\npretending to be. It is an open-world survival and crafting game for one to four players\ntogether, set on Ashenfall, which is a continent of Gielinor that RuneScape itself has never\nused. Gielinor is the world both games are set in. This is the first standalone title in the\nRuneScape family.
\nThat matters if you are reading this as a RuneScape player rather than a survival player. The\nfamily is being widened rather than deepened, and the thing shipping in September is a\ndifferent genre wearing familiar art. Whether that is exciting or annoying depends entirely on\nwhich of those two things you turned up for, and we are not going to tell you which.
\nWhat we will say is that the shape of the release is the right one. A game leaves early access\non a named date, at 1.0, for up to four players in a world you can walk around. The press\nrelease names no season pass and no shop. In 2026 that is worth noticing rather than\nassuming.
\nThe early access run earns attention. Jagex says the game passed one million sales during\nearly access, which is a great many for a game still being finished. The release describes every update through early access as shaped\nby player feedback, which is a claim easy to make and hard to check. What is checkable from\nJagex's own newsroom is the cadence beside it. Update 0.12.1, expanding the Agility skill, went\nout on 29 July. The Xbox Game Pass day-one announcement followed on 19 August. That is a team\nshipping in public in the weeks before a console launch.
\nCredit where it is due: the RuneScape Wiki is where the community\nhas been documenting Ashenfall while the game changed under it.
\nThe press release names PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S. It does not name Nintendo\nSwitch 2 anywhere, and neither does the wishlist paragraph, which points at the PlayStation and\nXbox stores only. Where you see a Switch listing for this launch, it is not coming from Jagex's\nown release. We have corrected our own release tracker accordingly, rather than\nleave a platform on it the publisher has not claimed.
\nThe Scorned Wilderness update arrives with 1.0 on 15 September, and the release says all\ncontent from Umbral Sands is in it. Jagex has not published a day for Umbral Sands itself, only "later this\nSummer", so that one is not on the calendar. The launch is, with the day we last\nchecked it against Jagex's own page.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-08-28T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/launches/dragonwilds-leaves-early-access-15-september/", "summary": "Jagex dated the full launch to 15 September on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox. What ships with it, and the one platform the press release never mentions.", "title": "RuneScape: Dragonwilds leaves early access on 15 September", "url": "https://0hp.com/launches/dragonwilds-leaves-early-access-15-september/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "EVE Online, which is the long-running space game Fenris Creations makes, is being moved off\nPython 2.7. That is sixteen years after it last changed language version, and six years after\nthat version stopped being supported.\nThe studio's own blog\nputs real numbers on the job, which is why it is worth reading rather than skipping as\nhousekeeping.
\nPython is the programming language the game is largely written in: the blog counts 2.4 million\nlines of it. Version 2.7 reached the end of its life in 2020, so new tools are built for\nPython 3 instead.
\nA note on the studio's name, because it changed this year. Fenris Creations is the company\nbehind the game. The blog credits it as one of the most significant contributors to Stackless\nPython, the version of the language EVE runs on. The name comes from\nits own announcement of 6 May 2026, which says\nthe company behind EVE is once again becoming independent. We use the name the sources use.
\n| Measure | \nNumber | \n
|---|---|
| Lines of Python in the codebase | \nabout 2.4 million | \n
| Files scanned under both versions | \nabout 20,000 | \n
| Files that already worked under both | \n95.9% on the first scan | \n
| Lines using syntax Python 3 rejects | \nabout 3,300 | \n
| Old-style print statements | \nabout 1,500 | \n
| Long number literals such as 123L | \nabout 800 | \n
| Deprecated exception clauses | \nabout 600 | \n
| Uses of the ancient not-equal operator | \n50 | \n
| Lines that work under both and behave differently | \nabout 20,000 | \n
That last row is the whole project. The example given is division. In Python 2, one divided by\ntwo is zero. In Python 3 it is 0.5. When the numbers involved are damage, currency or\ncoordinates, each of those lines needs a person to decide, not a tool.
\nNothing, this year, and that is exactly why we are writing about it.
\nA twenty-three year old world running on a dead language version is a slow-motion risk to\neverybody who has a character in it. Every year on Python 2 is another year of libraries\nfalling out of reach, and more of the toolchain maintained in-house instead of spent on the\ngame. Doing the migration is unglamorous, expensive and invisible when it works, which is why\nstudios put it off until something breaks. Starting before something breaks is the correct\ncall and deserves saying out loud.
\nThe measurement discipline is the part worth copying. Running every file under both versions\nto find out how far the codebase actually is, rather than estimating, turned an unbounded fear\ninto a countable list: 3,300 lines to fix mechanically and 20,000 to read. A studio that\npublishes those numbers is a studio that can be held to them.
\nCredit belongs to the players here as well as the engineers. The first stage was tested in\nlate July on Singularity, the game's public test server, by the players, whom this game calls\ncapsuleers, who volunteered to play\na version of the game whose whole ambition was to feel identical. The studio thanks them and\nsays they are the ones helping it get there. That is unpaid work protecting everybody else's\nassets, and it is worth naming.
\nThe honest caveat is that stage one was the easy part by the studio's own account, and no\ncompletion date is given for the rest.
\nMore test rounds on Singularity, with no dates announced, and the agent mission backend being\nprepared alongside them. Nothing here is dated, so nothing joins the calendar until the\nstudio names a day.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-08-28T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/eve-online-python-3-migration/", "summary": "EVE has started moving off Python 2.7 onto Python 3. The measured scale: 3,300 lines that stop the build, and 20,000 more that work fine and behave differently.", "title": "EVE Online is moving 2.4 million lines of code off a version that died in 2020", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/eve-online-python-3-migration/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "Amazon Game Studios is handing two of the online worlds it published back to Korea. On 12\nAugust 2026 it announced,\nin a post about Throne and Liberty,\nthat day-to-day running of that game moves to two other companies from the last quarter of\n2026. A near-identical post the same day sent Lost Ark back to Smilegate in early 2027.
\nWho is who, in a line. Throne and Liberty goes to FirstSpark Games, which is the studio that\ndevelops it, and to NCSOFT, its Korean owner. Lost Ark goes to Smilegate, the Korean studio\nbehind that one. Amazon Game Studios published both in the West. And both are MMOs, which\nstands for massively multiplayer online games, the kind thousands of people share at once.
\n| \n | Throne and Liberty | \nLost Ark | \n
|---|---|---|
| Going to | \nFirstSpark Games and NCSOFT | \nSmilegate | \n
| Amazon's stated timing | \nStarting the last quarter of 2026 | \nStarting early 2027 | \n
| Time Amazon published it | \nNearly two years | \nNearly five years | \n
| Exact date given | \nNo | \nNo | \n
| Shutdown mentioned | \nNo | \nNo | \n
| Amazon's framing | \nHanding the game back to the developers | \nHanding the game back to the developers | \n
Neither post gives a day, and both use the same phrase about returning the game to the people\nwho made it. Worth noticing, given both went out the same day.
\nA handover is a different thing from a shutdown, and we want that stated before anything else.\nThe two get conflated every time, and the conflation costs a game its population.
\nBoth worlds keep running. What changes is who answers when something breaks, who funds the\nWestern translation, and who decides the shop. Neither post says anything about any of that.\nOur expectation is that an operator with a direct line to the developers ships regional content\nfaster, and that the shop is the thing to watch, because a new operator sets its own pricing\nand nobody has published theirs.
\nThe uncomfortable read is what these two posts say together, and we will label it as ours\nrather than Amazon's. Amazon spent nearly five years on one of these games and nearly two on\nthe other, and announced both exits on one day. Both posts give the same reason, and it is a\ngenerous one: handing the game back to the developers, so their passion for it can keep being\nrealised. Our reading is that a reason this warm, arriving twice on one morning, is also a\njudgement about the business of running these games in the West. Players should weigh it that\nway rather than as a verdict on the worlds they play in.
\nAmazon's third online world is on a different footing again. New World is its colonial-era\nfantasy game, and we covered its dated shutdown from Amazon's own separate notice.
\nWhat we would ask for is a date. A quarter is not a date, and an account holder with a paid\nreward track or an unspent currency balance is entitled to know the day their relationship\nchanges hands. Until one is published, everything downstream of it,\nincluding whether balances carry, is a question nobody can answer.
\nBoth transfers sit on the sunset tracker as handovers rather than shutdowns, with\nthe windows the publishers actually gave and the day we last checked each. New World's\nshutdown is on the same page, with the date Amazon gave in its own notice.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-08-27T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/amazon-hands-back-throne-and-liberty-and-lost-ark/", "summary": "Amazon is transferring Throne and Liberty to FirstSpark Games and NCSOFT in late 2026, and Lost Ark to Smilegate in early 2027. Both announced the same day.", "title": "Amazon is handing two more of its online worlds back to the studios behind them", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/amazon-hands-back-throne-and-liberty-and-lost-ark/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "BlizzCon, which is Blizzard's own convention for its games, is back on Saturday 12 and\nSunday 13 September 2026 at the Anaheim Convention Center, per\nBlizzard's own announcement.\nTwo days, one venue, and a named list of what is on: opening ceremony, panels, the Darkmoon\nFaire, friendly competition and hands-on gameplay.
\nThe Darkmoon Faire, for anyone who has not played, is a recurring in-game carnival in World of\nWarcraft, and Blizzard names it among the show's staples.
\nThere is a difference between a date and a schedule, and this is a date.
\n| \n | In the announcement | \nNot in the announcement | \n
|---|---|---|
| Days | \nSaturday 12 and Sunday 13 September | \nany hour-by-hour timing | \n
| Venue | \nAnaheim Convention Center | \nhall or stage detail | \n
| Programme | \nopening ceremony, panels, Darkmoon Faire, competition, hands-on play | \nwhich tournaments, which finals | \n
| Tickets | \nsign up at BlizzCon.com for first notice | \nan on-sale date or a price | \n
| Broadcast | \nnothing | \na stream plan, a paid at-home ticket, or Twitch reward drops | \n
Blizzard says it aims to "meaningfully elevate this iconic celebration", which is the\nlanguage of a company that knows the last few years have been uneven. The announcement\ndates the first BlizzCon to 2005.
\nA two-day, single-venue BlizzCon is the shape, and the shape is the news.
\nAn opening ceremony still on the list means the ceremony carries whatever announcement weight\nthe year has. That is worth planning around if you follow one of Blizzard's games: our reading\nis that the ceremony is where the year's dates arrive, and that everything after it is\nelaboration.
\nNow the part we were not gentle about, and the update it has since earned. Nothing in this\nannouncement mentions a stream, a virtual ticket or drops. For most of the people reading it,\nwho will watch from home rather than fly to Anaheim, that was the one fact they wanted.\nBlizzard said plans would be shared as they took shape, and it has since published them. We\nhave the running order and the stream plan in full in\nour piece on the schedule. That is late for a\nquestion this basic, and it is answered.
\nThe thing we like: a convention that comes back at all, in a hall, with a schedule, is a\ngenre keeping a tradition that costs money and returns goodwill rather than revenue. Worth\ndefending, even while we complain about the broadcast.
\nTickets have no on-sale date in this announcement. Blizzard asks people to sign up at\nBlizzCon.com for first notice, and to follow it on social media. That is the whole of the call\nto action in it.
\nWe carry the event on the calendar with both days and the day we last checked\nit against Blizzard's page. If a broadcast plan, a ticket date or a tournament schedule\nappears on a Blizzard page, that row moves and the date it moved sits on the row.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-08-26T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/blizzcon-2026-returns-12-13-september/", "summary": "Blizzard has dated its own convention to a Saturday and Sunday at the Anaheim Convention Center. What the announcement commits to, and what it leaves out.", "title": "BlizzCon is back in Anaheim on 12 and 13 September", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/blizzcon-2026-returns-12-13-september/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "New World: Aeternum, which is Amazon's colonial-era fantasy game set on a supernatural island,\nis switched off on 31 January 2027. And\nAmazon's own notice\nlays out the whole wind-down rather than just the ending. The game was pulled from sale on 15\nJanuary 2026, and in-game purchases stopped on 20 July 2026. The last season stays running\nuntil the lights go out.
\nAeternum is that island. Nighthaven, further down, is the game's most recent season, which is\na named run of content with its own rewards. Marks of Fortune are the currency you buy with\nreal money and spend in the game's shop.
\n| Date | \nWhat happens | \n
|---|---|
| 15 January 2026 | \nDelisted, no longer available for purchase | \n
| 20 July 2026 | \nMarks of Fortune and all other in-game purchases stop | \n
| Through to the end | \nNighthaven season extended, world bosses and bonus weeks continue | \n
| Through to the end | \nNo new content, no further server merges, bugs and performance still watched | \n
| 31 January 2027 | \nServers taken offline on all platforms, permanently | \n
Owners can still download and reinstall until the shutdown. Refunds for Marks of Fortune are\nnot available, and Amazon points anyone who bought the game recently at the storefront they\nbought it from.
\nThis is close to the best version of a bad announcement, and the one part we would argue with\nis the refund line.
\nStart with what Amazon got right, because it is more than most. A year of notice. A shutdown\ndate named in advance rather than trickled out. Purchases switched off six months before the\nend, so nobody spends money on a world with weeks left. The final season extended rather than\ncut short, and world bosses and bonus weeks left running so the game still has a heartbeat\nwhile it winds down. Compare that with the shutdowns that give a month's notice and stop the\nevents immediately.
\nNow the refund. Marks of Fortune are a purchased currency, and any balance a player is holding\non 31 January 2027 buys nothing, ever. Amazon closed the shop in July, which proves it\nunderstands the problem exists, and then declined to refund the balances that closure stranded.\nCurrency sold for real money and extinguished by the seller's own decision should come back to\nthe person who paid for it. That is the whole argument against premium currencies in one line.\nThey convert money into something the publisher can end.
\nThe wider point is one we made when Amazon handed Throne and Liberty and Lost Ark back to\ntheir studios, and it lands harder here. This game is being switched off on a named day. Those\ntwo are changing hands with no end date at all. Those are genuinely different outcomes, and it\nis worth keeping them apart.
\nNothing else is dated. The shutdown sits on the sunset tracker with the day we\nlast checked it against Amazon's own notice, alongside the two handovers we covered from\nAmazon's separate announcements.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-08-26T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/new-world-aeternum-shutdown-timeline/", "summary": "Amazon dated the shutdown, pulled the game from sale in January 2026 and stopped selling its paid currency in July. No refunds, and the last season runs on.", "title": "New World goes offline on 31 January 2027, and the shop closed first", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/new-world-aeternum-shutdown-timeline/" }, { "authors": [ { "name": "0hp", "url": "https://0hp.com/" } ], "content_html": "RuneScape: Dragonwilds, which is Jagex's survival game set in the RuneScape world, leaves early\naccess on 15 September 2026. Jagex has now said what happens after.\nA message from Mod Dutch\nframes that release as the end of the Dragon Queen's story rather than the end of the game, and\npromises a multi-year run of updates.
\nSome names, all of them the game's own. Early access is a paid unfinished release players buy\ninto before launch. Mod is the prefix a Jagex developer's public name carries. The Kuldra Saga\nis the current story arc, and the message calls its finish the Scorned Wilderness raid.\nGielinor is the wider RuneScape world. And Runefest, where the detail is due, is Jagex's own\nconvention.
\n| \n | Stated | \n
|---|---|
| What 1.0 concludes | \nThe Kuldra Saga, with the Scorned Wilderness raid as its finish | \n
| What continues | \nAshenfall, described as still hidden from the rest of Gielinor | \n
| Scope named | \nSkills, quests, regions, bosses, enemies, rewards | \n
| Timeframe | \nA multi-year journey, no dates | \n
| Next detail | \nCloser to launch, then Runefest in October 2026 | \n
| Where it was said | \nThe Runefest 2026 preview livestream, 1 hour 28 minutes in | \n
Ashenfall, in that table, is the part of the world the game takes place in, and Mod Dutch\nsays it stays hidden from the rest of Gielinor behind ancient magics.
\nSaying this out loud before launch is worth more than it looks, and it is also not a roadmap.
\nThe genuine fear about a survival game leaving early access is that 1.0 is the exit rather than\nthe milestone. The studio ships the ending, the reviews land, the team moves on, and the\nDiscord slowly notices. Jagex naming a multi-year plan in advance, and pointing at Runefest for\nthe detail, removes the ambiguity that usually costs a game its population in the month after\nrelease. Whether it is true will be visible in the updates that do or do not arrive.
\nThe framing deserves a second look too. Jagex describes its RuneScape titles as ongoing\nprojects that are never done, which is the honest description of what has kept its RuneScape\ntitles alive for twenty-five years. Applying it to a survival game is not obviously right.\nSurvival games live and die on a finished, coherent world rather than a content drip. This is a\nclaim about intent, and intent is not content.
\nWhat we would want before calling it a commitment is a single date. Skills, quests, regions and\nbosses listed without one is the shape of an aspiration. The only checkable thing here is\nRunefest in October. We will hold it there.
\n1.0 arrives on 15 September, and Runefest follows in October 2026 with no day\nannounced. The launch is on the calendar and on the release tracker,\neach with the day we last checked it against Jagex's own pages.
\n", "date_modified": "2026-09-03T00:00:00Z", "date_published": "2026-08-24T00:00:00Z", "id": "https://0hp.com/news/dragonwilds-after-1-0-multi-year-plan/", "summary": "Mod Dutch promised a multi-year plan after the 15 September launch: more skills, quests, regions and bosses, with the detail due at Runefest in October.", "title": "Jagex says Dragonwilds 1.0 ends one story, not the game", "url": "https://0hp.com/news/dragonwilds-after-1-0-multi-year-plan/" } ], "language": "en", "title": "0hp", "version": "https://jsonfeed.org/version/1.1" }