Skyrms Music done by one guy

I avoid these things like the plague but this one is really good:

Guildwars 2 closed beta starts Friday

We inch ever closer to knowing its release date.

Guild Wars 2 Mesmer

The final class for Guildwars 2 has been announced. I am kind of glad they didn't drop the Mesmer. Its the only class I haven't played yet in Guildwars 1 as a primary.

Today only - Free Empire Earth

Today only you can get the classic Empire Earth for free from good old games. Just go here and grab it:

http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/empire_earth_gold_edition

Diablo 3 intro

P.S.A

Things are moving. This site isn't going anywhere but some of the background links may break over the next week or so.

To avoid any interuption make sure to book mark the direct link to this site:

http://yamama-nz.blogspot.com/

To quote Malcolm Betruger from Doom 3 - ' Amazing things will happen here soon, you just wait '

What if Doom / Quake were made today

The Quake one is a bit more cheesy but it does show how we used to play at the end. I would also like to know, What the hell happened to FPS gaming ?

New X3 annouced

This is newer than Rebirth which is still coming.

My little Horde

source: http://dawoc.deviantart.com/art/My-Little-Horde-268193384

Skyrim 1.3

The patch that fixes the problems from the last patch and makes the game playable again. No more 1 shot fireballs from the cave of annoying jerks.

• Fixed magic resistances not calculating properly.
• Fixed dragon animation issue.
• Optimize performance for Core 2 Duo CPUs. 
• Fixed issue with placing books on bookshelves inside player purchased homes.
• Fixed Radiant Story incorrectly filling certain roles.
• General stability improvements.
• Fixed Y-look input to scale correctly with framerate.

Best thing in the World

of you know where

Modern Warfare 3 - Starring Ghost

Skyrim Creation Kit Next Month

Also patch to fix this weeks patch next week.

Terraria Updated

The HUGE update to Terraria is out. I think I have my weekend sorted ;)

Patch notes below.

New EvE Online trailer

CCP are still in damage control mode as the game shifts focus back to internet spaceships.

Their hoofs will blot out the sun

Hour of Twilight

This is a fan edited trailer with voice acting from the game overlayed and is much more epic sounding than the original blizzard trailer.

Classic RPG Gameplay

For the modern PC: I hope this is easy to buy, eg appears on steam.

4.3 is released tomorrow and after the break is the lastest Patch notes from the PTR.

Many new features, new raids, dungeons but for me its the transmog system which I am interested in.

Skyrim Patch

UPDATE 1.2 NOTES (all platforms unless specified)

• Improved occasional performance issues resulting from long term play (PlayStation 3)
• Fixed issue where textures would not properly upgrade when installed to drive (Xbox 360)
• Fixed crash on startup when audio is set to sample rate other than 44100Hz (PC)
• Fixed issue where projectiles did not properly fade away
• Fixed occasional issue where a guest would arrive to the player’s wedding dead
• Dragon corpses now clean up properly
• Fixed rare issue where dragons would not attack
• Fixed rare NPC sleeping animation bug
• Fixed rare issue with dead corpses being cleared up prematurely
• Skeleton Key will now work properly if player has no lockpicks in their inventory
• Fixed rare issue with renaming enchanted weapons and armor
• Fixed rare issue with dragons not properly giving souls after death
• ESC button can now be used to exit menus (PC)
• Fixed occasional mouse sensitivity issues (PC)
• General functionality fixes related to remapping buttons and controls (PC)

 Good that they fixed the wedding guests arriving dead, nothing worse than that.

No word on this issue:

I just passed out

When I discovered that Starflight 1 & 2 are on good old games.

http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/starflight_1_2

Well I know what I will be doing this weekend.

MoP - Talent Calculator

 I am not sure on the new Talent system but I agree with Blizzard that the current system is just useless when you end up with cookie cutter builds.

Today they released the calculator for talents which seems a bit too early but I guess they want to give people the chances to see what new ideas they have. You can try the new system out at the following website:

us.battle.net/wow/en/game/mists-of-pandaria/feature/talent-calculator#e!

Chuck Norris

Reminder: Warcrafts 7th Anniversary

Starts today, Also pilgrim festival has started *gobble *gobble*

Almost forgot due to Minecraft.

Minecraft 1.0 is here

Notch went on stage, and after much procrastnation by a girl with pink hair which was really annoying, he pulled a switch and utterly killed the minecraft server.

A few mins later they came back and 1.0 was here.

Down with raiding, up with PvP

We've made slight adjustments to the Valor Point (VP) drops on the 4.3 PTR which testers can now see. In both 10- and 25-player raids, bosses will now drop 100 VP each (down from 115 and 135 respectively). We’ll also be changing Firelands raid bosses to drop 50 VP per kill upon release of the patch.

This change is being made to further emphasize the desire to kill bosses for the items they drop. In the 4.3 raid, tier sets can only be earned from boss drops, and as Raid Finder will allow for just about anyone to get a chance to kill bosses, we think there will be less need for Valor overall. We want to try to match the lower desire for VP with a slightly slower acquisition rate.

We appreciate your thoughts and constructive discussion on how these changes may affect you and your guild once 4.3 is released.

Also

In patch 4.3 we’re changing the daily battleground (BG) to reward 100 conquest for a win (up from 25). In addition, every non-rated BG that you win will also give you 50 conquest. There is no limit to how many BGs you can run this way, up to the normal conquest cap.

Our intent is to start acting even more on our Mists of Pandaria philosophies of encouraging players to approach the content they want to, how they want to, and be able to work toward meaningful player progression. Arenas and rated battlegrounds will still earn Conquest faster, but with this change you can now work your way up by running normal BGs, if you so choose.

I am glad for this change. Normal, fun BG PVP has always been behind. Blizzard doesn't want to give it the best rewards because no one will do arena's and rated bgs. To me this tells you that people are only doing arenas for gear, not for fun.

Arenas are quite are fun but its the requirement of having a fixed team which isn't.

Warcraft adding 64bit

I hope it does, its a memory hungry game and have full access to all of your system memory should be a huge boost.

Bag Search

My prays have been answered. Bag search is coming to the default warcraft UI:

These are not my bags as there is some orginzation going on here. Notice the search in the main bag.

Also here is the transmog UI:

Minecraft Has gone Gold

Version 1.0 is complete, not sure when the download will be up.

Skyrim - Shadows

Tyranni wanted to know how to disable shadows. It looks like it can be done in the ini file by changing the following. Just make a note of the default settings:

fInteriorShadowDistance=0
fShadowDistance=0

Some reason the shadow engine in Skyrim is just messed up and causes most of the slowness in the game. Its not even using the GPU instead offloading all the work onto the CPU. So if your haveing preformance issues this will help, alot.

The lighting in the game is utterly pathetic. Its very inconstant, even on ultra. You go from smooth shaded shadows to blocky or even none.

This is 2011 but the Creation Engine feels like its still 2006. They didn't even add sun shafts to the game and don't get me started on snowing and raining inside forts. The game is good but its completely shackled by the prehistoric tech inside the Xbox 360.

3 Days - Shock and Awesome

Guildwars 2 - 2011 Character creator video

Final Day - Penny Arcade Tip

Source - Penny Arcade

Mega Piranha

Skyrim Still using Gamebyro ?

If it is still using a updated version of the render and file format of gamebyro then:


Thank goodness !

Yeah I am not one of those random idiots who blame Gamebyro for Oblivion being unstable when so many other games use it. The problem was never with Gamebyro, its a good engine, the problem has always been how it was used.

Anyway, the reasion this is good news is it may make importing models into the engine much easier.

If Skyrim uses a compeltely new engine then it will have new file formats and not use the .nif format that Gamebyro uses. This could throw mod makers compeltely in the dark when it comes to importing models.

Anyway, only one more day to go.

Shadowsong Blade up for bids

http://stores.ebay.com/Blizzard-Blade-Servers/Shadowsong-/_i.html?_fsub=3021427011&_sid=1079577521&_trksid=p4634.c0.m322

Already they are all $152+ USD and theres 5 days to go.

Gah, why did I have to roll on a server that has some histroy =P

2 Days - Radiant Story

"The vibe of the game is that it’s something that you can play forever," says Howard. He stresses this will not just be random chores, but rather an extension of lessons learned from development of Fallout 3, as they worked on motivating players to explore a vast game world. "With Fallout, it’s not as beautiful a world to everybody. We had to find ways to make exploration of [a destroyed wasteland] interesting," he says. "The world is probably the one thing that sets [Skyrim] apart from other games. It feels really real for what it is … It’s just fun to explore."  source

I don't know what this is but it sounds interesting.

My hope, is something like what they did in Daggerfall ( The Elder Scrolls 2 ). Daggerfall was the random chores but it ment you could join a guild and accually do some real work for them not do 10 - 15 finely crafted quests and then bugger off to never speak to them again.

3 Days - Brand New Trailer !!!

4 Days - Skyrim Rap

5 Days - Sound of Skyrim

Simon reads a angry email sent to Notch

SS It did happen

Aion 3.0 KR Trailer

Like I said with the last lot of screenshots, this is all the stuff they promised with the vision trailer. Is it little too late ? Still for a patch, this is a huge amount of cool new featuers. I might be tempted to give it a whrrle when its released as during my time in Rift, all I was thinking about was how Aion did it better.

Terraria teasing

More teasers for Terraria's upcoming patch:

Trine 2

3 Player online Coop this time: Looks good, up for pre-order on steam for $14.95.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/35720/

Minecraft 1.9 PR 5 Released

Change list:

• Block of iron texture is changed.
• You now have mushroom biome grass in your creative inventory.
• Fence Posts no longer connect to leaves.
• More achievements.
• Annoying Stair glitch fixed. Confirmed by redditor meesebyte.
• Option to disable clouds in menu.
• F6 = smooth walking It seems to allow you to fly straight but not up or down (works on survival). It acts as a noclip, lets you go through blocks deals you damage... Your Y co-ordinate doesn't change.
• F9 Adds a fixed camera angle. ( You can move this with I, J, K, and L)
• Passive squid animation is now vertical. (Credit to B1ueStarfish for finding this)
• Lily pads are no longer gray in inventory, have a tool tip.
• In creative mode hostile mobs no longer attack you unless provoked, except for ghasts and spiders. Note Enemies from spawners are still hostile. (Thanks theriverotter)
• Melon slice drops are back to normal! (Thanks dg200)
• Pressing "N" "M" "Y" "U" "O" and "H" changes depth of field and angles of camera. (Thanks Pupetteer)
• You receive a warning when changing render distance to far.
• Items retain their enchantments if chest is destroyed.
• You can now look around without a mouse using: I, J, K, and L.
• Slimes not restricted to y0-16 anymore.
• Game Crashing piston glitch fixed.
  
• Player bow drawback animation improved.
• Silk touch does not work on spawners.
• Instant Heal splash potions damage zombies.
• Vertical Water physics are different. (Not sure if bug or otherwise)
• Cool Enderdragon Death Animation.
• Snow Golums visible!
• Longer reach for mining as well as attacking.

Skyrim System Specs

The final system requirements for Skyrim are out:

Recommended Specs

    Windows 7/Vista/XP PC (32 or 64 bit)
    Processor: Quad-core Intel or AMD CPU
    4GB System RAM
    6GB free HDD space
    DirectX 9.0c compatible NVIDIA or AMD ATI video card with 1GB of RAM (Nvidia GeForce
    GTX 260 or higher; ATI Radeon 4890 or higher).
    DirectX compatible sound card
    Internet access for Steam activation

Minimum Specs

    Windows 7/Vista/XP PC (32 or 64 bit)
    Processor: Dual Core 2.0GHz or equivalent processor
    2GB System RAM
    6GB free HDD Space
    Direct X 9.0c compliant video card with 512 MB of RAM
    DirectX compatible sound card
    Internet access for Steam activation

Kind of on the low side really. I upgraded my PC for Skyrim and my old PC would have fitted into Reccomened Specs with ease. This is no Witcher 2.

The other interesting fact is that the game is only 6GB install. I hope this means no pre-rendered videos. Oblivion had a intro video and thats all I remeber. The Witcher 2 is 15gb with 3gb being set aside for pre-rendered video. Oblivion was 3gb I think, maybe 2.5. A better comparsion would be fallout New Vegas which is 6.9gb with 336mb of video.

Etherway, its good because it means it does run on older machines but you can see how the consoles has held back the title from what it could be. Good thing PC has mods and hopefully the limits in the game can be extended on by the fans like they did with Oblivion.

Not long now.

My thoughts on Blizzcon

So Blizzcon is now over and my impressions on this year is that it was a billion times better than last year.

First off they had something to talk about. Last year they only had Diablo 3 which is really hard to be interested in when its was still a year away.

First off the news that Heart of the Swarm is going to be a expansion not a stand alone game has me interested. It is going to be shorter than Wings of Liberty but this feels better than buying the same game 3 times.

Diablo 3 was kind of the same as last year. The real money trade auction house is interesting that they are letting people cash out for real money on items. I would be super worried about this if it was going to effect my game but the way I see it is I have no interest in the auction house or letting any randoms into my games so as far as I am concern it doesn't exist.

Now onto the big one.

Mists of Pandera for Warcraft.

I personally think this expansion is what the game needs. They are finally taking the game sideways. If you plotted out warcrafts expansions you would see this stead climb towards a even greater evil.

WoW:

Deathwings Children -> Slithid -> Naxx

Burning Crusade:

Illidans groupies -> Kil'jaeden

Wrath of the Lich King:

Lich King

Cataclysm:

Deathwing

After that there isn't much left. Pandera lets us go back and just be ourselves in a new land. There is no looming evil. I am hoping that theres no Titan instances or lore in this expansion.

Titans feel like midichlorians, something added that just doesn't fit. They are almost as bad as troll instances with the way they pop up in game. They come off as technology in a world of fantasy. They need to be forgotten about, much like the Naru. 

The other features which sound good is the new Talent system. Putting points into things has become a bit redundant and blizzard have seen this and so removed the point system all together. Now you just select 1 of 3 skills every 15 levels. I am not sure if this is going to make leveling feel a bit stale, nothings worse at the moment when you level and you don't get a talent or a skill.

PVP is a big push with many new game modes and a hint at Warcraft Dota. WoW Dota would be such a huge thing to the point where blizzard could sell it as a separate game. I have a feeling WoW dota will be something that gets pushed to the side lines.

Tech wise the engine upgrades look good. Blizzard are adding SSOA, does make me laugh when they hype it up but it is something very easy to add to a game.  They are toying with IK animation shown in the Pandera belts. They sway more dynamically than a canned animation. Full IK would be nice they could even add ragdoll system to the game if they did that.

The texture painting tools they showed in the editor blew me away, to the point where I am thinking of how to add this sort of thing to my game. Unity might already have something like this with Substance.

The Pokemon system, well I am holding judgement on that for now.

PvE Scenarios, I still don't really know what they are. When they talked about them it jumped all over the place.

Outdoor missions which are public quest for 2 - 3 people in a instance where you do battlegrounds against mobs ?

What they showed was something that looked very much like rifts system for rifts. A 3 stage event where you do x number of tasks. Unlike rift theses aren't all about the same thing.

Challenge mode Dungeons, 45 min barren run with leader boards and no loot. Still that was the barren run in a nutshell. Its a interesting concept, they are making them imposable to out gear which is also nice. The rewards is armor with no stats which you can transmog. Not sure how popular this is going to be but its something else to do that's not raids.

The Pandera And Monk Class. they look cool. The opportunity here is huge for gear styles and something really different. The fact that they start neutral and then join sides is perfect. I was really worried pre-blizzcon con that someone would end up with the boobie race ( the debate is still out on that for Cataclysm ). I shouldn't roll a monk as the RSI OOS will be insane. They don't have auto attack so you must do a action every move. They want a street fighter feel, so they should make high kick/punch low kick/punch skills.

Wrapping up, I feel that this expansion is what Warcraft needed. Its a holiday from itself to explore something different and I will be looking forward to its release which is set for some time next year.

Here is the updated Bingo Card. I was reluctant to cross off public quests and I left duo dungeons uncrossed as they really need to lock down what a PvE Scenario is.

Live from Blizzcon, It is:

Mists of Pandera

• New Playable Race -- Pandaren: Adventure through Azeroth as World of Warcraft's first neutral race and decide whether to side with the Alliance or the Horde.
• New Playable Class -- Monk: Unlock the secrets of pandaren martial arts and do battle as a damage dealer, healer, or tank.
• Level Cap Increased to 90:Learn potent new spells and abilities while exploring uncharted zones and taking on challenging new content.
• New Zones:Explore the lush Jade Forest, treacherous Kun-Lai Summit, and other exotic areas of Pandaria designed for high-level characters, and uncover the mystery of the Wandering Isle.
• Scenarios: Join up with some friends to achieve a common goal, such as mounting a defense against invading monsters, in a flexible new type of PvE challenge.
• Dungeon “Challenge” Modes: Master the ultimate five-player time trial to earn prestige rewards in a new dungeon mode that will put your resolve and coordination to the test.
• Pet Battles: Challenge other players’ companion pets with your own collection in a new tactical mini-game, and find out who's king or queen of the pint-sized battlefield.
• New Talent System: Customize your character to suit your play style with the newly overhauled and improved talent system.

Other news, if you subscrib to Warcraft for a year, you get Diablo 3 Free ( while subsciption to Warcraft contunes )

You also get Tyreals Sparkle horse.

Updates:

Metzen announces that both Alliance and Horde can be Panda's
During the Opening, they say they are bring the War back to Warcraft.
Loads of talk about Red Vs Blue

Hmmm

Blizzcon Goodie bag gift card. Guess there is something going down. Ether that or we are getting Creepers for Starcraft 2.

Spot the upgrades

Aion Player Houseing is finally coming

Much like the long delayed Walking on Stations for EvE, Aion has been dangling play housing around for a long time.

Unlike EvE, it looks as though they have been working hard on the system.

From what I can gather in the screenshots, You have a choice of prefabed design of the outside of the house, Can full colour it as your choose and then layout the furniture inside. Placing and rotating it where ever you wish. There is none of this Hookpoint crap that alot of mmo's do.

While I am not sure I don't think this has hit the Korean servers yet. If it hasn't there could be a LONG wait for it to hit the US version.

As for the vision trailer they showed a while back, I am giving them a B+, for once it wasn't full of wind. They have added the enhanced graphics and features shown. To bad the games a subscription wrapped around a cash shop.

Minecraft switching to weekly updates

Until its launch some time next month.

Not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Its good as we will get new features, new bug fixes every week.

The bad news is we will get new bugs and texture mods will get out of date faster.

Blizzcon Expansion Bingo

Tyranni and myself did a bit of brain storming over what might be appearing if there is a new expansion at blizzcon.

Whats up Blizzards Sleeve ?

I think I ask myself this ever year and I am disappointed as each Blizzcon comes and goes with nothing really new.

The schedule for Blizzcon 2011 has been released and on close inspection things seem dull but its this dullness which has me interested.

Why would you put World of Warcraft Preview on the Main Stage just after the opening if there is nothing to preview. The entire schedule is full of nondescript World of Warcraft refences.

Pandera's in the mist ?
Wouldn't it be awesome if they got sigourney weaver to announce that.

Space Marine Exterminatus

 

October 25th 2011

Doesn't include my little inquisitor pony

Ender Realm

Just when I thought enders couldn't get more scary:

And wait, is that a dragon ?

Raging about Rage

This could be a coincidence but it seems like Rage has Bethesda's crack team of voice actors. That is  that one guy. This makes the voice reactions hard to work out, is it one guy in a room or five.

"Move up, here he comes, take cover " etc then when you burst into a room you find 1 guy hiding behind a box.

Minecraft 1.9 Pre Release 3

New featuers include:

• Enchanting Table
• Eye of Ender
• Brewing Stand
• Cauldron Icon
• Crystal Block (will investigate)
• Golden Apples' tool-tip appears pink - the apple itself has a shine effect
• Baby animals

And 'wierd black stuff'

http://www.minecraftforum.net/news/257-19-pre-release-3-is-ready-to-test/

Blues on Diablo 3 beta

Just a quick link:

http://www.bluesnews.com/a/2534/diablo-iii-beta-preview

Brings up some interesting points and worth reading.

Rage ships, people raging

I have a bad feeling about this. I only ordered Rage because it was ID Software, the company responsible for me ditching my Amiga 500 and getting a 486SX-33.

Reports are coming in that the game is very consoltitis and runs poorly on the PC.

I'll be getting the game tomorrow as I opted for the boxed release its currently out on steam ( 3 DVD's is too much for me to download from steam during Blizzcon Month ).

I am not sure what I am expecting, people raged about Doom 3 and I enjoyed that quite a lot.

Minecraft - Gnometopia server map images

Yesterday I got Darth to send me the world files from his server so i could make a googlemaps style map out of it. The only issue is that Tectonicus the map rendering program created 3gb of data. So here are some screenshots while I adjust zoom levels to make the map smaller.

The saints row characters sing Take On Me

This is all of the six chooseable voices for the game singing take on me. Makes me wonder if in coop you get duets.

How Jurassic Park Should Have Ended

The Witcher 2 2.0 released

Much like the orginal witcher, a huge update has been released with new features and changes to gameplay.

I knew this was coming so I held back getting to far into the game. Full list of features can be found below.

Square Enix says FFXIV greatly damaged Final Fantasy brand

Accually, I think FFXIII did more damage to the brand than a broken MMO which is being fixed.

Battlefield 3 comparation PC vs. Playstation3 Split Screen

I have heard that the PS3 version is the better of the console versions. The Wii version is slightly higher res and the Xbox version you don't need to install but here is a side by side view of the PC vs PS3:

Metal Gear Solid RISK

There is now a version of Risk based on Metal Gear:

http://www.destructoid.com/risk-goes-metal-gear-in-new-board-game-release-212010.phtml

But does it take 20 mins to setup and then do you have to sit though 40 mins of the game explaining political and philosophical views before playing ?

Adam Jensen Does A Safety Dance!

It was funny, Darth mention Saftey Dance a few days ago:

What really happened to Jarjar

As told with the magic of Lego:

Delays and Release dates

The Delay:

Diablo 3 has been delayed until 2012. I am hoping this is so they can rethink the always connected DRM which I have heard from the BETA sucks.

I do not mind having to log in to play a game. Steam does this seamlessly and doesn't bother me. Starcraft 2 was ok as well but with Diablo you are playing online and are relying on that connection for your enjoyment.

At launch of Starcraft 2 I was constantly getting messages that I have disconnected from Battle.net and that achievements would not be tracked or something and thats about it. My guess is Battle.net could hold the load. With Diablo 3 if this happens you will be kicked from your singleplayer game, loosing any progress since the last way point. You won't loose any items but you will have to hack your way across the map again. Also you can not pause in singleplayer because its not really singleplayer and if idle you will be auto disconnected from Battle.net.

This is why I am against Blizzards Diablo 3 DRM its full this increasing sort sightedness the company has been having since around 2006. Where is the voice of reason in BlizzHQ or did they all leave to go work on Torchlight 2.

The Release:

In other news, now that EA know Blizzard won't have Diablo 3 out this year, The Old Republic has a Launch Date.

December 20, 2011

Unless you live outside of America and most of Europe. Then its unknown. What is known is the subscription costs are the same as every other MMO.  $14.95 USD per month.

If I was a Bioware network engineer I would be totally pissed off with EA/Bioware right about now. As they won't be getting a Xmas this year.

As mentioned a paragraph above, there is no talk on the release date for OZ/NZ. They won't even comment if the delay is because they are securing server space for us down here. I am not fussed, the game has lost a lot of its magic from a few years and my excitement is nearly gone. I put this partly down to Rift showing just how generic MMO's have become.


Summing up, I think Blizzard have played their cards well. The old republic will be out over Xmas then at a guess Blizzard will try to release around the 1 month anniversary of The old republic, tempting people to cancel there subs.


Bioware better hope that their game isn't a two week ride to the level cap. There needs to be enough content there to last 3 months on a single character. My guess is there isn't and they are hoping people will just rolls alts until  more content shows up.

Minecraft 1.9 pre-release

Not sure what a pre-release is but its out and features the following:

• New mobs
• Villager
• Magma Cube
• Snow Golem
• Mooshroom
• Blaze
• New blocks
• Netherrack Bricks
• Netherrack Stairs
• Netherrack Fence
• Lily Pad
• New items
• Blaze Rod
• Ghast Tear
• Nether Wart
• Gold Nugget
• New generated structures
• Nether Ruins
• New Bugs
• Biome tinting is too harsh between regular water and swamp water, rather than blending.
• Can no longer jump repeatedly by holding a key
• Snow golems do not take fall damage

World of Darkness details

Can vampires really be cool any more ?

Were they ever cool to begin with ?

Details of CCP next MMO ( and the main reasion EvE is dieing according to the forums ) is thier take on White Wolfs Vampire RPG.

From the sound of it, its going to be a Vampire Theme second life with permadeath.

Read the full feature list in the rest of the post:

Ewan McGregor learns the title of Star Wars Ep II

Surely this should have put up alarm bells.

Still they didn't stop after the first one and lucas is contuning to ruin what was left of the classic movies.

Why do we even need ewoks that can blink, its not as though I was watching the movies thinking, gee its weird the Ewoks aren't blinking.

Asura Videos

Asure week contines with a Animation sample video and Rata Sum:

Saints Row 3: Decker Trailer

Asura Week Begins

Today is the begining of Asure week on Arena.net

The first page has a bit about their background and the desgin behind the look.

http://www.arena.net/blog/matt-barrett-on-asura-design

The Asura are the last to be profiled meaning we have only one more class until everything about the races  and classes are released.

I hope they go into detail about the asura golums and if you get to have one to pilot. Its something that the new book goes into detail about.

I plan on making a Asura and who wouldn't. For starters you can call everyone a Bookah.

I'll post more infomation as its released.

New Trailer for BF3 - 64 Player map

Why bother with 16 / 32 player maps. 64 is all you need.

CHARR !!!!!!

I want one !!!

Penny Arcade store is currently selling them for $35USD.

http://store.penny-arcade.com/products/charr-plush#

They could have done a Asura but Charr makes them even more awesome.

Supposedly his tag reads Charrlie.

STO Free to play details

The free to play version isn't bad, but the subscription version doesn't have much incentive.

http://www.startrekonline.com/f2p_features

About the only thing that makes it tempting is the 400 C-Points a month.

This makes me wonder if C-Store items are going to go up in price. Because after 4 months you could get a free ship.

I also hope that legacy subscribers keep there bag, bank slots etc.

Star Trek Online to go Free to play

Its confirmed, Star Trek Online will be free to play later this year:

"Cryptic is working on the free-to-play model for Star Trek Online," Perfect World Entertainment's CEO, Kelvin Lau

Any more details, I do not know but this was predictable. The way I see it, any game that offers a life time sub is going to go free to play. This is because once your lifers have reached a certain point then they become leeches and aren't adding to profits.

I just hope they do the free to play model right. I am happy to pay a sub to that game but it has to be worth it.

Serious Sam Double D

I think, this entire game is made to prove the point that Sam can hold more guns than Duke:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/111600/

And strangely, it looks so insane, that I want it.

Fallout 3 Seriers

Rumor: Guildwars 2 to provide private servers

This quote might be taken out of context but Colin Johanson and Eric Flannum of arena net said:

"create and host their own servers or games with specific rule-sets as well."

I have a feeling this may be to do with PVP matchs etc and would be like how old FPS worked. This is all speculative but it could be like wanting to play 2 vs 2 DM or maybe 16 vs 16 vs 16 CTF.

A interesting feature for sure and another idea about breaking the mold set by the MMO giants.

I'll post more when I find more details. 

Guildwars 2 guilds

In Guildwars you could join one guild per account.

In Guildwars 2 you can join as many guilds as you like all at the same time pre character.

This is awesome feature, you can join a smaller social guild but still be part of that hardcore pvp guild. Some people think its a insane idea, how can they have popular guild and be the center of attention when there is nothing stopping people joining other guilds. OH NOES

I think its brilliant and another step away from the MMO way of thinking of things.

SWTOR Beta tests start Sept 2nd

Last night I talked about how I wouldn't want a Guildwars 2 beta so I wouldn't spoil it. But as The old republic is such a unknown on what its really like I would be temped to try.

The only issue I see is the game is 30gb in size which just happens to be my entire months usage.

So I am unsure if I will download it.

Something this large should be a streaming client.

New Guildwars PVP from PAX

Warning, LOUD Intro at start of video.

Clear Skies 3 - Outtakes

Skyrim DLC 1 month exclusive on Xbox

Microsoft effort to get behind Windows gaming.

Fine, I'll just wait for the cheaper bundle and play with Mods. I am ok that Bethesda doesn't want my money.

Torchlight 2: Price details

It is priced the same as the first one when it was released: $19.95 USD

But this time it has multiplayer, lan/online and new classes:

The magic-wielding Embermage. The mysterious Embermage joins the previously announced Engineer, Outlander, and Berserker classes. This marks the culmination of a month long buildup introducing each class to players.

It still has all the old features from the last game:

Offline singleplayer, Mod kit and Mods and Matt Uelmen:



You know, all the stuff missing from Diablo 3.

Rift can go get stuffed

So anyway I got the email for the half birthday saying the game is up and running only to find I am forced to transfer off the realm.

So I choose a new realm, sorry your name is taken. So I run though every realm in the game and find I can't transfer without renaming my character.

Your character name is the most customizable part of this game and now they won't let me use it. So I have lost all intrest in even wanting to play.

I have no idea why they didn't evolve the naming system like most modern MMO's ( Charactername@User or First and last names ). Its so retarded.

So Rift is gone for me, gone much like EvE Online.

Oh and I was Coinlocked AGAIN and had to jump though hoops AGAIN to unlock my account.

Not worth the effort.

FWI, Both Steam 'coinlock' and Guildwars 'Coinlock' didn't trigger with my recent computer changes, and they shouldn't ether as it should be based off location not hardware.

Pax prime starts tomorrow ....

Which means more Guildwars 2 infomation and videos.

Warhammer 40k: Space Marine demo

This is good, as I have been on the fence about this game and they released a windows demo.

It should be on steam but you can find details here:

http://www.spacemarine.com/blog-post/space-marine-demo-live-xbox-pc-worldwide

Deus Ex Reviews

The new Deus Ex reviews are coming in and are postive.

People talking about 35 hour game length, saying its like Metal Gear. So because of this, I am Pre-ordering the PC boxed edition ( Square can go jump in a lake with its over priced Steam edition ).

Best it will be a enjoyable game.
Worst I can have something new to rant about thats not Dragon Age 2.

Guildwars 2 Crafting

Only 2 professons at a time ( boo )
Choice of 8 in total ( yaaa )
You can switch and not loose progress ( yaaa )

Guildwars 2 Gameplay from Gamescon

New Trailer:



Pve public event boss battle:



Character Creation:

Jump the Charr from this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhPMysnqFwc&feature=youtu.be&t=13m12s



Pvp arena match:

Starcraft Lore in a Minute with Husky

Carpool

Who would have guessed, Kryten driving Picard around:

SCROLLS

Notch the creator of Minecraft has thrown down the gaultet over the whole Scrolls trademark lawsuit:

The only negative thing going on at this moment is the Scrolls trademark lawsuit nonsense, and I think I came up with the perfect solution:

Remember that scene in Game of Thrones where Tyrion chose a trial by battle in the Eyrie? Well, let’s do that instead! I challenge Bethesda to a game of Quake 3. Three of our best warriors against three of your best warriors. We select one level, you select the other, we randomize the order. 20 minute matches, highest total frag count per team across both levels wins.

If we win, you drop the lawsuit.

If you win, we will change the name of Scrolls to something you’re fine with.

Regardless of the outcome, we could still have a small text somewhere saying our game is not related to your game series in any way, if you wish.

I am serious, by the way.

All courtcases should be settled in Quake 3. We would live in a much better world. 

Appearce changes coming to warcraft

Blizzard have announced that they will be allowing players to customize there appearnce. Unfortanlly they seem to be going down the path of Aion then say Star Wars Galaxies:

The Ethereals, emerging from the nether, will bring with them a new technology they call Transmogrification. They’re heading to the capital cities of Azeroth to set up shop and to offer adventurers a unique service -- copying the appearance of one magical item onto another. They only ask for a modest gold donation to recoup their costs.

Visiting a Transmogrifier will present players with a new interface that will allow them to change the appearance of an item while retaining its original stats. This means that you can raid in your paladin tier 12 Immolation set, but look like you’re wearing Lightbringer, while priests can bring Benediction back -- at least in spirit. Hunters can once again roam the jungles of Stranglethorn Vale in their tier 2 Dragonstalker set. You could even slip into the saucy tailored Black Mageweave set for that matter. You know, with the thigh highs, and the little gloves, and the cute little… ahem.

Ethereals, wow, I thought they had gone the way of midichlorians.

Still this seems like a hacked job done in desperation to try and recover subscribers. Blizzard needs to do a lot more than that to get me to even think of going back.  Like actual things to do that isn't repeating quest, repeating raids, repeating dungeons.

Terraria 1.0.6.1 released

The bug fix patch for Terraria is now out and should have downloaded for you via steam. The changes after the break.

Nexus 2

I saw this a few days ago. Its dated 2005, and I thought, man that would be so awesome if they finished it:



Turns out they have been working on it:

"We're happy to put a large chunk of our own resources into making Nexus 2", said Horneman, "but realistically we cannot fund the whole project ourselves. So, with GamesPlant, we can offer all our fans out there a chance to be part of the Nexus 2 project. The more you pledge, the more you will benefit; from digital pre-orders, through special boxed editions and your name included in the game, right up to profitsharing; everyone can be a part of this."

Can't wait.

Dota 2 Trailer

Its hard to tell if parts of this trailer is done with the engine or not but this is the first look at Dota 2:

Its coming back

Problery the greatest mod ever made is coming back. The above video shows nothing of the new version of the game but I am still excitied.

It is most problery UDK based.

Is the game industry like the movie industry

The reason I say this is Valve have announced a new Counterstrike.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Does the world need another Counterstrike in a land full of Modern Warfare and Battlefield 3 ?

My guess is this will be another free 2 play game from Valve but where has the innovation gone from these big company's. 

My pre-order list is almost all sequels. With only indy titles bring new worlds for me to explore. I can only hope that 50 years from now that innovation hasn't died other wise we will only have one game to play. The game Valve, EA and Acivision made when they joined forces to get new ideas:

Counter War Hero: On a Modern Field World.

Home Soil of the Sylvari

The trailer for the Sylvari home lands is now up as well as the Sylvari page on the offical site:

http://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/races/sylvari/



Updated: Replaced video link with youtube link.

Battlefield 3 has a web interface ?

Battlefield 3 requires Origin to run, this is no supprise what so ever but this comment from someone whos been in the game has me wondering:

You log in to the "battle log" website they've created, there you get access to a web based server browser, buddies list and can view stats, setup VOIP channels (web browser plug-ins required). When you join a server the game loads in the background, while this happens "Origin" pops up to the foreground and it cycles through advertisements on EA's store. If you minimize it then BF3 starts minimized as well. I couldn't find a way to stop it from popping up.

You need to leave your web browser open and have "Origin" running in the background while you play BF3.

There is no in game server browser, some people think that it was missing because it was Alpha but DICE went through all this work to make the game run with the web based frontend and "Origin". There's no way they would double their work and put a traditional server browser in game as well.
Source

I can't really comment until I see it running. But going backwards and forwards between game and website doesn't sound like fun and adverts in your face while waiting for the game to load is even worse.

Battlefield games have never loaded fast when first released.

It sounds dumb but they might have implemented it in a intellegent way. ( But this is EA ).

Growing the Sylvari

Yay for woman game designers.

Vanguard has a patch ?

Today is the day of surrpises what with Söldner and now Vanguard.

Could this be due to SWG being shut down and Sony realiseing that Vanguard could be worth fixing. I hope so because for a MMO it was one of the better Sandbox / Theme park hybrids around.

Söldner !

Do you remeber this game, I do, because I brought it.

It was horridly buggy and laggy so no one played it.

A few years back, they fixed it and it was good but only a handful of servers exisited.

Well Söldner is back and its now free to download and play. You can grab it from here:

http://www.soldnersecretwars.de/

Terraria 1.0.6 update

Its here, yay.

I have relocated the server back to my main machine, you can get details from me on steam.

Full patch notes after the jump:

Sylvari week begins

The Sylvari have been under wraps for the last year as they get a redesign of thier look.

http://www.arena.net/blog/kristen-perry-on-designing-and-redesigning-the-sylvari

At first they didn't look like they had changed much and first impressions weren't that good. As I scrolled down I started to like what I saw.

They still fit the description in the Ghosts of Ascalon book which is a relief. As I really enjoyed the Sylvari character in that book.

Looking at the clothing design has me wondering how it all works. I'll have to keep a close eye on the videos from the gaming expo which is coming up. It does look like every race will have a unique look when it comes to clothing.

In the end they are still the elf race but now they truly do look like plants and its great to see something that you took part in with the orginal game turn into this entirely new race.

I can see myself creating a Sylvari once I get Charr our of my system.

Also I am sure the Charr will think up suitable insults for their cabbage butts.

It happened

Jedi Consular

This is very, very dangerous of Bioware. They make it look like the healbot does more than just heal and is some bad ass.

Go watch any of the 5 man videos to see what the Jedi Consular is really for.

Random thought of the day

Star Trek cat likes popcorn too !

Tech 4 source code soon

The source code that powered Doom 3 and Quake 4 will be up for download by the end of the year.

I'll been keen to peek in on it to find out a few things once its realased.

Wow subs continue to decline, Morhaime Speaks

"As our players have become more experienced playing World of Warcraft over many years, they have become much better and much faster at consuming content," he recently said.

"And so I think with Cataclysm they were able to consume the content faster than with previous expansions, but that's why we're working on developing more content."

Yesterday, Morhaime made clear Blizzard’s response to this trend. The company pledged to flood the game with new content as a matter of urgency.

And he misses the point. For all its 'epic' 'huge' 'expansive' ness, Cata was small. They made level 1-60 take a week and then made 80-85 take less.

The problem for me, was bugs and the same old stuff I had been doing for years. I never made it to 85. The whole story and quest chains were just boring. There was the same old bottleneck quests where you had to wait. Mobs were respawning in less than 5 seconds so just getting anywhere in those bottlenecks was a pain. Some quests never appeared for me even though I follow the chain correctly.

And Deepholm was just a huge hole in the grown of boring stuff.

While the game does need more content, it needs to be real continue. Why do I feel they are thinking more Raids, dungeons and daily quests. What the game needs is new ways to play it. Epic public quest zones, housing, boats, control point pvp. More open pvp zones with objectives.

What we don't want is ' do these quests once a week for 7 days so you can do more repetitive quests cause we are lazy ', eg the tournament.

Blizzard trademarks Mists of Pandaria

Wow Expansion, new game, Titan ?

Guess we have to wait for Blizzcon.

Dota 2 at Gamescon

The first showing of Dota 2 will be at Cologne's five-day trade show where Valve will have a $1 million tournament.

As far as I am aware Dota 2 will still be free to play and explains why they have been pushing the whole free to play on steam.

This might be the first Dota I'll try.

New Guildwars 2 info soon

Guildwars 2 is going to Gamescom in europe on the August 17-21. With the biggest playable demo so far:

• Seven professions – Play all seven professions that we’ve revealed so far: engineer, thief, guardian, necromancer, ranger, warrior, and elementalist.

• Charr starter experience – For the first time, you can forge your destiny as a member of the Iron, Ash, or Blood Legion in our charr starter area. You can also choose to play the human and norn starting experience as well.

• Mid level demo – As always, we’ve prepared a higher level demo experience for players who want a challenge. Face powerful Orrian enemies on land, engage them in battle underwater and face off against a new boss.

• Sylvari and asura – Did I mention that you’ll be playing sylvari and asura characters for this high level content? Yes, for the first time, players will be able to get their hands on these unique races – believe me, they are impressive!

• Character appearance customization – Also for the first time, you’ll be able to play around with our character appearance customization feature and control the way your character looks.

• PvP – Last but certainly not least, we’re premiering Guild Wars 2 Player vs Player (PvP) at gamescom! Swing by the ESL booth and head to the Guild Wars 2 area to get your exclusive hands-on PvP experience. Also check out our periodic exhibition matches that pit our valiant team of ArenaNet developers against the European guild BOON Control on the ESL center stage.

There should be tones of new videos and info during this week. I can't wait.

Diablo 3 - Cash Auctions

First off, what the ?

Don’t Need It? Put It Up For Auction!
Nearly everything found in the game, including gold, can be exchanged with other players directly or through the auction house system. So say you’re a witch doctor and you’ve just found an incredibly rare, incredibly powerful axe that only barbarians can use. In the previous Diablo games your best option might have been to sell the axe to an in-game vendor, but in Diablo III, you now have the ability to list that axe in the auction house for your fellow barbarian players to bid on. And you know another player will probably appreciate the true value of that axe more than some heartless vendor who’ll likely just melt it down for scrap….

 Even gold ?

Then I saw this:

The Choice Is Yours
Use of either the real-money or gold-based auction house is completely optional -- that decision can be made on a per-item basis, and both versions of the auction house are functionally the same. In addition, players have the option to simply sell the items they obtain to in-game vendors for gold. They can also trade items to other players through a direct character-to-character trading system in the game in exchange for gold, other items, or just an overwhelming sense of goodwill.

Real money for in game items. Its supposed to be only for the auction house and its optional but what the hell has Blizzard become. Its become Blizzard ActivisiSUN this is just a vailed layer of the pay to win model and my interest in Diablo 3 is almost all but gone. The players make no money out of these auctions and Blizzard just pockets the profits themselfs.

John Carmack on Violence in games

"People just play games now and I never took seriously the violence in video games debate. It was basically talking points for people to get on CNN and espouse their stuff on there," says id Software Technical director John Carmack. "And I really think, if anything, there is more evidence to show that the violent games reduce aggression and violence. There have actually been some studies about that, that it’s cathartic. If you go to QuakeCon and you walk by and you see the people there [and compare that to] a random cross section of a college campus, you’re probably going to find a more peaceful crowd of people at the gaming convention. I think it’s at worst neutral and potentially positive."
Source

 It does depend on who you are playing against. I have a feeling I caused quite a bit of rage during the JK2 / JKA era.

But I fully agree. At the end of the day, its supposed to be a game and something fun just ever so often someone takes a a little too seriously and ruins it for everyone else when the media runs away with a headline.

New Old Republic video looks as bad as .....

Dragon Age 2.

Theres something in this video that really has me worried. Much like when I tried the Dragon Age 2 demo.

Its just not sitting right with me. Partly the smuggler changes and just the way the 'dungeon' plays out.

I am starting to wonder if I should cancel my pre-order and sit it out.

Ending and a beginning

Today was my last day at my old job for 7 years and Monday I start my new job as a software developer for a local IT company. Its a completely different field of work but something I have always had a passion for. Since the early days with my ZX-81 doing simple message loops to the more recent game programing and App programing at my last job. It is all very exciting.

But anyway enough about boring me, back to news about games.

Oh, I also got a brand new Intel i7 2600 for my home machine and in a nutshell its turbotastic. 

Sintel ' I move on ' Wins Two Jerry Goldsmith Awards.

I have linked this before but its worth linking again:

Vota for how the Female Shepard should look in Mass Effect 3

Hang on a sec, I thought this was a RPG and you just made her look how you want ?

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150244340101645.322035.85811091644&type=1&_fb_noscript=1

I guess this has something to do with the low amounts of people playing a female Shepard. I am surprised they haven't pulled it out of the game completely. Its not as though Shepard is your character, much like Hawk. Mass Effect 2 I would select a option and Shepard would do the complete reverse of where I was going, its not really a RPG, more of a on the rails JRPG-FPS with limited choices.

My 2nd half Playlist

First half of the year has been a but dull release wise. We had the awful Dragon Age 2 from bioware and the fantastic Witcher 2 from Cd projekt. LA Noir was fun but really I spent most of my time in side MMO's like Rift and Star Trek Online.

The next six months should be interesting. Here is my confirmed list of titles ( not in any order ):

1) Skyrim ( PC )
2) Battlefield 3 ( PC )
3) The Old Republic ( PC ) ( If it gets released )
4) Saints Row: The Thrid ( PC )
5) Arkham City ( PC ) 

Other titles I am keeping my eyes on are:

1) Deus Ex ( PC )
2) Dead Island ( PC )
3) StarHawk ( PS3 )
4) Space Marine ( PC )

Jon Hare plays Cannon Fodder Live

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CTulV5u1-M&t=555

These inverviews are quite interesting but I have skipped to the singing part. Cannon Fodder was one of the first I heard to have a theme song.

Parts of it talk about how American and the rest of the world had completely diffrent ideas of what games were about. 

The monkeys never let me down

http://www.mightyape.co.nz/product/PC-Games/Star-Wars-The-Old-Republic/18247042/

No The Old Republic in Oceanic ?

To all of our fans outside of North America and Europe:

Today we've announced the pre-order details for the initial launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic, and as you may now know, we’ve taken the difficult but necessary decision to limit our initial launch supply for the game. BioWare and LucasArts are completely focused on building an exceptional game and an exceptional game service to go with it. We decided to constrain our launch capacity to ensure we deliver a great experience to every player.

Part of the reason this decision was made was because of the overwhelming demand for The Old Republic, and we're humbled by that level of excitement and anticipation. We fully intend to deliver to you an amazing game when we expand our service post-launch, but right now we cannot commit to any timeframe for when that may happen. As soon as we have more information about additional launches in more territories, we’ll let you know.

We are committed to delivering Star Wars: The Old Republic to BioWare and Star Wars fans around the world, and to growing a truly global community.

 People are still analysing what this means but it looks like the game won't be launching in this part of the world until some time after the main launch.

I always try to see the brighter side of everything so at least this will stop me rushing out and buying it like I did with Dragon Age 2, the worst game of 2011.

Witcher patch + Free DLC

The update includes a plethora of fan-requested improvements, including difficulty adjustments for the game’s Prologue, support for a variety of aspect ratios and a host of other gameplay tweaks and fixes. Next to the long list of changes, this update also brings along free DLC - a quest called “A Sackful of Fluff”.

A sackful of Fluff ?

In the Witcher this could mean anything, even a actual sack full of Fluff.

Conan the Barbarian: The Musical

Battlefield 3 not on Steam ?

This is kind of a dumb move if it turns out to be true as by the sounds of it, its going to be avaliable on other online stores.

This doesn't really effect me that much due to it being a EA game and EA games are always on time in this country. So I'll be ordering a Boxed release of the title.

Still, this seems like nothing more than just a push for EA's own Origin download service.

Terraria, Our servers world.

Here is the complete map to our world:

Full sized image link:
Click to load full sized picture.

Coming soon to Terraria

Not this patch, but a patch soon.

Gorntastic

Skara & Tyranni

Planetside 2 Trailer

Hmm, looks terrible. Like Dust 514.

You can pick up Section 8 for less and it looks the same gameplay wise.

I am still hunting up details but I smells a lot like a console unreal engine game. The smell of wet pants.

STO: Session 4 Crossfire

Is out, I know what I am going to be doing this weekend.

Infographic shows Harry Potter and Star Wars are really the same

No... No... That's not true... That's impossible!

http://blastr.com/2011/07/infographic-shows-us-how.php

STO: Session 4 Patch notes

Out of all the MMO's I have played, STO has been the most improved. They are always revisiting all parts of the game to make it better.

Session 4 is out in the morning and has a massive list of changes. The most important is the ground combat changes.

Its now faster and has a optional 3rd person shooter mode which I am interested in trying out.

I am not expecting anything amazing but I think having it feel more like a shooter will suit the game better.

Fan made Oblivion Expansion

This always seems to happen, the new Elder Scrolls game is about to be released and then a mod team pulls out something awesome:



Turn on CC to get english subtitles.

Planetside 2 announcement this week

Nothing to post yet, but I will once the details are out.

Its the end of the World(of warcraft)

Nyhm is at it again:

Skyrim - LITERAL

CCP and CSM meeting results

What do we know about the results of the emgency meeting between CCP and the Council of Stellar Management.

A CCP blog post saying everything will be alright but not addressing much and a video with CCP and a CSM saying that they have been working hard at rebuilding trust, that they are tired but nothing about the game itself. I am not even posting the video as it was such a waste of 10 mins.

This has prompted me to uninstall the EvE Client from my machine. If I had a active account I would delete my characters.

What was addressed is that microtransaction items will only be vanity items .... for now and that CCP rushed the entire Incarna expansion.

I will never trust CCP again, I shouldn't have re-gained trust back in the Band of Brothers blue print scandel. The fact that I have been tracking the walking on stations content since 2005 and all that we get is a pointless closet to sell overpriced fake items has me not interested in the concept any more.

Also don't get me started on Dust. That is a utter waste of time for the consoles.

So Star Trek Online is now my game for Online Internet Spaceships and Evochron Mercenary.

Html 5

I have been diving into the magic world of HTML 5.

To start with I am just doing something really simple. Getting video working without flash. This turned out was quite easy but I had no video controls. So after a quick google I found a video player to control the stream.

Anyway a test after the jump

Guildwars 2 Intro

This is one of their real time cutscenes using concept art + 3D:



Looks great and has links to the Ghost of Ascalon book.

Warcraft demo unlimited

Some sites are claiming WoW has gone free to play but all that has happened is the demo cap is now 20 and it doesn't expire.

Also the burning crusade is now included in the 19.95 bundle.

Blizzard are missing the point again. You still need wotlk a dead expansion and cata.

They need to have a fixed single fee to join wow and drop expansion pack upgrade costs. This will get more people playing.

Unless the next wow exansipn offers something that's not raiding. This means I will get behind expansions and the reason to return will fade completely if it hasn't already.

Update: Some sites have been saying 30 others have been saying 20. I thnk it hasn't changed and you can still only level to 20. I was thinking they may have bummped it up because it only takes a day to get to level 20 unlike a weekend in the past.

Team fortress 2 is Free to play

That is, you can now just download the game for free and play. Just fire up steam and download. Hats aren't free, but hats don't cost $20 - $69 and its just hats.

Also finally, the meet the medic video is out:



I always play the medic.

The end of Starwars Galaxies

Sony annouced today that SWG will be shutdown on the 15th of dec of this year.

SWG was never a good game but it was a good example of the open world sand box mmo. It had some great ideas and they pushed the concept of what a open world should be.

Then the World of Warcraft came along.

It looks like the shutdown is due to The Old Republic and lucasarts. I guess this is the risk you run when using someone elses IP. Lord of the rings online also has this hanging over their heads as it wasn't too long ago the contract was renewed for a few more years.

I do feel sorry for the long term fans of the game, some have stuck by for the entire 8 years of the games life. It always sucks when something like this happens and the risks of playing mmos.

Terraria 1.0.5 is out

Massive list of changes:

http://www.terrariaonline.com/threads/1-0-5-changelog.33191/

New Monsters and 50 new items.

Gabe on The Old Republic

He seems to enjoy it, you can read his impressions here:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2011/6/22/ - Second post down.

I like what he says about how he played his Bounty Hunter:

At first I intended to play him as a real asshole but some of the moral quagmires these quests put you in just aren’t that black and white. Do I do what gets me the most credits? Do I stay loyal to the person who gave me the job even it means hurting Innocent people? As a result of all this I have a character that is a hard ass bounty hunter who has a soft spot for people in trouble and children. The only thing I could tell you about my WOW character Dudefella is that he was a mage and a hell of a good dancer.

Still, from what I learned in bioware games, you choices aren't always what you expect. Still it will be interesting to play a MMO where you stop and think about how your character will responce, instead of, Complete / Next Quest.

That dress cost HOW MUCH !?!?!

I was set, credit card in hand, ready to resubscribe to EvE Online.

Thankfully I waited because something happened that made me rethink ever going back to EvE. People logged in and found out how much the micotransactions were for the costumes.

Turns out a Dress in EvE Online costs the same as a dress in the real world.

I don't know what CCP are thinking but this is not how you do Microtransactions. Theres a Video from blizzard where Samwise starts going on about Macrotransactions which thankfully the video is a bit of fun. It seems that CCP thought it was a good idea.

Shirts cost $25 and the eye implant is $68.

$25 for Blizzards sparkle horse or retarded lion was bad enough but at least people can see those and go ' Ooooo look at that moron. ' With EvE no one can see it because they haven't made multiplayer hotel rooms yet. 

Now people have found out that they are planning to sell ammo for real money as well as faction rep and other things.

I guess World of Darkness will be a second life that you pay to play with real world prices on clothing.

So yeah, I am no longer interested in going back to EvE online. This is problery a good thing.

City of Hero's Freedom

As I am short on time here is the link:

http://www.cityofheroes.com/news/freedom/freedom_overview.html

Sounds like City of Hero's is going free to play. Haven't had time to check up on all the details.

That's How I Play: DRAGON AGE

Possably NSWF, but its only minor. Content may offened, but its no worse than the game itself:



And if you haven't already, look up Beatdownboogie's Modern Gear 2 seriers.