Clanless Fun

Blizzard has released the latest World of Warcraft patch, updating the MMORPG to version 2.1.2. The patch starts off Arena Season 2, resetting all ladders and offering new rewards. Additionally, the patch offers new art for raid items, and the usual balancing changes and bug fixes, like:

General

• Arena and Honor Rewards: As part of the inauguration of Season 2, the costs of all Arena items and Honor items has been reduced.
• Improved Mend Pet, Abolish Disease, and Abolish Poison no longer play sounds when there is nothing to dispel.
• Players can no longer fail with skinning at maximum skill.
• Spellcloth: Creating spellcloth will once again only summon one Angered Nether-wraith.
• Some new cooking recipes are available from Kylene in Shattrath City.
• A recipe for a superior resilience gem has been added and is rumored to be held by the residents of Halaa.
• Procs: Most procs are set to trigger only from spells that cost mana, but inadvertently disallowed spells that cost a percentage of base mana. That bug has been fixed and so such spells will now trigger many procs they did not previously trigger.
• Players will no longer slow down to walking speed when closely following another player.

The patch also includes changes for some classes, items, quests, dungeons, raids, the interface, world environment. Read the full list of changes here.

“Last night, Valve representatives confirmed to Shacknews that the studio’s upcoming trio of Source-powered games will ship for all announced platforms on October 9, 2007.

Today’s news follows rumors originating last month that the PlayStation 3 versions of the games would be delayed into 2008. Valve’s Doug Lombardi noted to Shacknews that development has been progressing well on all three platforms.

Electronic Arts is distributing the games at retail as a package entitled Half-Life 2: The Orange Box, which also includes the original Half-Life 2 and last year’s Half-Life 2: Episode One. It will sell for $49.99 on PC and $59.99 on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Previously, the company intended to sell a slimmer package, The Black Box, which would not include Half-Life 2 or Half-Life 2: Episode One, but those plans were cancelled last month. It is expected that Steam customers will retain the option to purchase only the newly-released games.”

Source: shacknews.com

“With Episode Two, Team Fortress 2, and the compelling Portal, The Orange Box is going to be a commanding package for anyone who likes single- or multiplayer action games. Sure, Episode Two was supposed to ship last year, but it appears the delay will be well worth the wait, as Valve is packing a lot of gameplay into the package. We can expect The Orange Box to ship this fall.”

To bad they canceled the “Black Box” now you get an extra copy of Half-Life 2 and Episode 1 when you already got them.
Could give away the product-code though, so who of ~FUN~ doesn’t have Half-Life 2 ?

Read the preview here

IncGamers interviewed lead producer Chris Sigaty about Starcraft II during the announcement weekend.

IncGamers: RTS games were the games that made Blizzard into a major gaming company, but now it’s been a while. Warcraft III was 2003. What took Blizzard so long to get back?

Sigaty: [Amused] Well, there was a little something that came along called World of Warcraft. We made the decision to make Starcraft II right after the ship of the Frozen Throne. But we couldn’t start in true earnest because of the impact of World of Warcraft. It was so huge, and so foreign to us at the time. RTS and action RPG games (like Diablo) were our bread-and-butter.

We made the decision to do it, and there were always a few people working on elements of it, but we couldn’t collectively attack it, because our artists would be pulled off to help work on this or that [for World of Warcraft].

IncGamers: There was a big gaming website that stated – definitively – that this big announcement would, in fact, be a Starcraft MMO…

Sigaty: [Laughing out loud] Yeah, I read that.

IncGamers: So why, at the last minute, did you switch things up and go with Starcraft II instead?

Sigaty: [Still laughing] Well, here’s the deal. Last Monday, we decided that because they said that, we wanted to screw them over and go with Starcraft II.

Read the interview here

Game developer Valve, known for games like Counter Strike (Source) and Half-Life (2), has published the results of a (continuous) survey they are doing through the Steam service.

Some interesting facts (based on results as of 10:32pm PST (06:32 GMT), June 05 2007):

• Processor Vendor
  • AMD 48.56%
  • Intel 51.44%

• Windows Version
  • Windows XP 92.88%
  • Windows Vista 5.04%

• DirectX10 Systems
  • Vista with DirectX10 GPU 1.25%

See the full survey results here

A Q&A article by MSNBC asking Blizzards Rob Pardo (Vice President - Game design) about topics such as development processes, team motivation, courting casual players and expectations from StarCraft 2.

Q: How’d you manage to keep it secret for so long?

A: We keep games under code names and we teach developers to refer to games by their code name. And we’re just really careful about talking about the game internally. We don’t bring external folks through unannounced product areas. But I think even I’m surprised that we were able to keep it under wraps all the way to the end.

Q: The real-time strategy field is crowded right now with quality titles like “Supreme Commander,” “Company of Heroes,” and “Dawn of War.” How will “StarCraft 2” distinguish itself?

A: We’ve definitely never been shy to go into a crowded field, especially a genre that historically we’ve been one of the kings of. “StarCraft 2” will distinguish itself really well through online play. We’re building it to be the best competitive RTS on the market. RTSs, especially the ones you mentioned, are focused on single-player only.

We really are hoping to innovate more in the single-player [game] than we have in the past — we’re just not releasing details about it yet. But our story and our world and our IP [that] we developed in “StarCraft” is superior to what we’re going to be competing against.

Read the article here

“Valve’s goal with Half-Life 2: The Orange Box is to offer a great single-player title (Episode Two), a unique gameplay experience (Portal), and an awesome multiplayer game (Team Fortress 2). From our play date at Valve, it appears the legendary company will be able to deliver on all three aspects. While Episode Two is one sweet shooter and Portal is the next evolution in puzzle games, it’s Team Fortress 2 that proved the most impressive.

Team Fortress 2 is a fast-paced class-based online shooter. Valve’s challenge in reviving the long-dormant TF franchise was in creating a great experience no matter which of the nine classes a player chose. Along with making each class visually different, Valve managed to infuse each class with its own personality. Each requires a different type of strategy; but all nine classes are useful. And, more importantly, each is fun to play.”

See this article by IGN, the piece provides some insight on the classes used in Team Fortress 2.

“The demo gives you 3 tracks and 3 race types to try out.

Firstly there’s the point-to-point, against-the-clock action that’s a hallmark of the series. The demo pits you and your Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX against a testing Italian rally stage. This mode is also playable in multiplayer.

Secondly, test your nerve in off-road racing as you race against 9 fearsome AI drivers in a CORR class 1 buggy packing 650bhp.

Finally, take on the rally legend himself, Colin McRae, in a Subaru Impreza – the race is on a twisting tarmac crossover track in Germany.”

Downloads:

• mirror 1
• mirror 2

Scheduled for release: June 15th

ABC Island one of the most visited places in Second Life, has been obliterated.

“It looks like we’ve had some enormous cyber-bomb set off on our site. Somebody has nuked us in some way, shape or form, and they’ve obliterated almost every object on the site.“

I never understood this “game”, the hype the …. fuzz about some huge chat room.

Read more about it here.

Perhaps some of you may know it already, but it is good news: ->click<-

Another reason not to go for Vista yet