Watching Blizzard: Written from under my desk

If you read the Queue, then you know that my grand plan for the day was to hide under my desk to avoid both people and work obligations. (You may not see me under there, but that's only because I'm stealthy.) Neither are working out very well, but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop trying. So, live from under my desk, here is the latest in Blizzard news.

Want spoilers? We've got spoilers!

• Today's spoilers come in the form of datamined Battle for Azeroth cutscenes, and though we'd already seen some of the action, we now have more details (and more excellent voice acting). Plus Rossi reminded me of a fact about Saurfang which makes his part of the story all the more a gut-punch. You clever lore-hounds were probably already on top of this fact, but cut me some slack because it's been a long time since Wrath.
• Blizzard also posted a short excerpt from the expansion tie-in novel Before the Storm, which is due out in less than two weeks! Excite! Anyway, the preview is short and has nothing on the preview that Amazon posted a while back, which essentially gives up the whole novel.
• If you, like me, clicked on Blizzard's blog post and scrolled down to the text thinking isn't this the description of the book we've already seen?, there's a link at the top of the page to the actual excerpt.

Speaking of spoilers...

I don't usually consider screenshots to be spoilers, but who knows, I'm sure some people do. At any rate, Anne has a new gallery of beta screenshots, this time exploring Stormsong Monastery in Boralus.

It's time for another player profile!

• I mentioned it yesterday, and maybe you've already seen it on the site, but today we published a character profile for Silverbolt, an Alliance Warrior with a backstory that ties directly in to Battle for Azeroth.
• And again, if you want a character profile from us, you just have to support us at $25+ for one month and we'll add you to the queue to write. (Just follow these instructions to submit your info.)

Overwatch League is back

• And because the Shanghai Dragons are totally going to have their first win when their match starts in a half hour, I need to wrap this up. Anna has a rundown of everything interesting from last week, plus a look forward to the top matches this week... and the surprising rise of the Dallas Fuel, who won't make the playoffs but have been putting up a good fight.
• Note: Shanghai is playing Seoul tonight and is definitely not going to get their first win. Seoul's performance hasn't been great lately, but it would have to be really not great for Shanghai to best them tonight.

One final note... We're testing some new advertisements in posts on Blizzard Watch, and I know supporters are currently seeing them. This is a bug that will be fixed, likely by the weekend. Ad spacing is also, bluntly, a mess. We're working on prettying it up, but in the meanwhile you can send us any bugs or other display issues you encounter. You can mention them in Discord or email them to me at liz@blizzardwatch.com.

And that is actually it for today. I'll see you all again tomorrow, but until then, this is Liz, signing out.