When we try to convince people to play World of Warcraft, it's usually because we despise them and want their real world lives to crumble around them as they try to convince themselves that their new sword is so much better than their last one. But be careful: Thanks to Blizzard's new recruiting push, others' motives for trying to rope you in may not be so pure.
Those who invite friends to the game and persuade them to pay for two months up front will get a free Zhevra mount, the ability to summon their referred friends and triple experience when they're questing together, up to level 60. It's tempting, but we hear that if you recruit a friend to Fury, you get the whole game. You know, just something to think about.
After the beta announcement, we knew the hour of bewilderment was almost upon us. Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime announced in a conference call (via Shacknews) that the latest World of Warcraft expansion Wrath of the Lich King is coming this year between October or December. Morhaime actually said it was coming out this year, but "it's not coming out in the July to September quarter," which after hours of calculations left us certain of the Q4 2008 window. Brush up on your WotLK news care of WoW Insider.
A marriage of MMO powerhouse World of Warcraftand mobile phones may seem technically unsound, but it's not exactly a pipe dream either. First there was the guy who sort of, kind of but not really was able to get WoW up and running on his iPhone, then there was Blizzard's own admission that it was trying to find a way to utilize cell phones for some sort of WoW application.
Now, it seems the team's been beaten to the punch by a couple of new iPhone apps. The first, Warcraft Characters, allows you to enter character and realm name and check out a few character stats (no gear, though). The second, WarcraftStat allows you to check your realm's status even when you're out and about, the implications of which are almost too depressing to consider.
OK, so they're not exactly fully-featured, but hopefully they'll pacify until Blizzard gets busy.
The world of Warcraft (and subsequently World of Warcraft) owes a lot to Lord of the Rings ... but this is outright thievery! We jest, of course, but The Eye of Acherus does bear a striking resemblance, palette swap notwithstanding, of a certain bling-seeking, fiery ocular orb. The folks at WoW Insider have more on how the orb is used in questing.
This week's GameTap update un-Disney-fies fairy tales with the addition of American McGee's Grimm. Play as the crude title character in the first set of eight episodes over the coming weeks (schedule posted after the break). The game buffet also adds one other title for subscribers this week. Remember, the first episode of Grimm is free to play for all and all future episodes are free for the first 24 hours after release.
Grimm (Windows) - One angry dwarf is bringing everything back to basics.
Alien Stars (Windows) - A top-down shmup. So, pew, pew-pew, pew, pew-pew-pew, away.
Grimm is this week's addition to the GameTap gratis lineup. The full list of free ad-supported titles on the service can be found after the break.
Blizzard announced today that tickets for BlizzCon 2008 will go on sale Monday, August 11. Tickets will be priced at $100 a pop (as if Blizzard and co. weren't already deep enough in our pockets) and be available directly from blizzcon.com. The third semi-regular gathering of elves, trolls and spacemen will be held at the Anaheim Convention Center in -- where else? -- Anaheim, California on October 10 and 11. For those unwilling to venture forth, DirecTV will be broadcasting a pay per view version right to your dome in "crystal-clear HD" (scientifically proven to be better than real life). As a bonus, new DirecTV subscribers will get the televised BlizzCon access for free.
While no one knows for sure just what blessings Blizzard will bestow upon its faithful at BlizzCon, you can bet on seeing more of the Wrath expansion for World of Warcraft, along with some new details about Starcraft II and Diablo 3. If you plan to make the pilgrimage out to Anaheim, buy your tickets early -- there's not exactly room for everyone.
Hoping to make a comeback with that 365-point quixotry play in Scrabulous? US and Canadian Facebook users were likely dismayed to find out this week that Scrabulous has been disabled. The region-specific lock likely has to do with Hasbro's license for all Scrabble video games, which is for US and Canada only (Mattel owns the rights for the rest of the world). In the interim, you can always play the official Scrabble Facebook app care of Electronic Arts, although it lacks the panache of the seemingly now-defunct Scrabulous.
And the winner is ... gamers! Well, that's the conclusion we came to after witnessing the sheer amount of top-notch games trotted out at this year's E3. While we're finalizing the official Joystiq E3 2008 Awards (coming soon – there was a lot of blood confetti to clean up in the judge's room) we'd like to offer, for your list-reading pleasure, IGN's picks for the Best of Show in various categories.
E3 may be over (and it may have not been the greatest installment of the event) but Big Download has some more game impressions from the show plus some other original features to check out. Here are the highlights from the past week:
Interview: Microsoft's Kevin Unangst: We chat with the Games for Windows general manager about their decision to make Games for Windows Live free and offer the first screenshot of the revamped UI for the service.
Downloads
Far Cry 2 E3 trailer: Check out the shoot-em-up action in this trailer promoting the Ubisoft FPS
Project Origin E3 trailer: It's both exciting and scary at the same time. It's footage from the Monoloth shooter sequel
Will Wright gave the opening keynote today at the nerd-packed Comic-Con 2008, an event so chock full of fellow geeks we're hard-pressed to find a free patch of San Diego Convention Center floor to stand on. For the first half hour or so Will rattled off profound observations and inspirational quips at approximately the speed of light, leaving the second half of the presentation to an extensive demo of the civilization and space stages of Spore.
The touted reveal of the MashON Spore Comic Book Creator wasn't much more than a few minutes' discussion of the tool that will live at http://mashon.com/spore/, enabling players to take the creatures and other assets they make in the game and import them into an interactive comic book creation engine. A booklet passed out to attendees while waiting for the keynote tells us you'll be able to drag and drop screenshots taken in Spore right into the tool, add audio and video clips and other assets, create and lay out the entire story environment and share it with friends via email or Flash embed code. Users can rate and save other players' stories on the Mashon.com site and play them back as digital flip books as well as print them out. Wright talked about how the Comic Book Creator fits within the overall ethos of the game, which is about putting players more in the role of George Lucas than Luke Skywalker, allowing them to actually create the worlds themselves beyond just playing in them.
All you need to know about this week's GameTap update is encapsulated in one word: Fallout. There, we've said our bit. No word yet when Fallout 2 will make it onto the smorgasbord.
Fallout (Windows) - "A post nuclear role playing game."
Aveyond 2 (Windows) - A relatively new RPG that looks like an old-school Squaresoft game.
Battle Chess(Windows) - Play chess, but watch the pieces on the board beat the pixels out of each other. Oh, how we long for an HD remake of this game.
Knights of the Round gets added to GameTap's selection of gratis games this week. The full list of free ad-supported titles from the service can be found after the break.
Gaming buffet GameTap just announced that THQ- and ValuSoft-published titles will begin finding their way onto the service starting this summer. Notable titles include:
Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War and expansions
Company of Heroes
Red Faction
Supreme Commander
Saints Row 2
Puzzle Quest
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
It's nice to see relatively new titles like Supreme Commander make the list. We're also curious to find out if Saints Row 2 releases on the service the same day as retail, similar to GameTap's deal with Codemasters. The THQ agreement is apparently a "long-term partnership" and some titles will also be made available on GameTap's free ad-supported service. This THQ announcement comes only a few months after Interplay returned and Take-Two committed to the service.
During our time at E3 last week, we were able to spend about an hour with a very patient Maxis Producer Thomas Vu, who guided us through a near-final build of Spore (the whole thing) and answered a barrage of questions. Here's what we gleaned from our play session, broken down into each phase:
First it was Quake Zero, then it became Quake Live, and now we have a fresh new look at Quake Arena, id's free-to-play, browser-based iteration of Quake III Arena. As you'd expect, the visuals are decidedly simple, but still stylish nonetheless. We noticed a few instances of gameshow-like billboards peppered throughout levels; while they simply read "Quake Live" in the video, it's likely these are placeholders for in-game advertising.
The trailer beckons viewers to QuakeLive.com for more info, but the site is still serving the sole purpose of a gateway for beta signups. From what's shown in the footage, it will eventually become a very robust matching and ranking component of the game. With QuakeCon kicking off in just a couple of weeks we expect to find out more details soon.
It's E3 week and we were there getting some hands-on time and some eyes-on time with some of the biggest PC game releases in the next several months. Here are the highlights from Big Download for the past week.
The Indiana Jones game that LucasArts doesn't want you to know about ... yet
Check out PS3 Fanboy's Trophy portal for all your Trophy-hunting needs!
Source: First images from 360 Avatar Creator
The Joystiq E3 2008 Awards
Joyswag: Samsung 22" widescreen LCD monitor
Listen to the Joystiq podcast (because your ears can't read)
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A marriage of MMO powerhouse World of Warcraft and mobile phones may seem technically unsound, but it's not exactly a pipe dream either. First there was the guy who sort of, kind of but not really was able to get WoW up and running on his iPhone, then there was Blizzard's own admission that it was trying to find a way to utilize cell phones for some sort of WoW application.
_thumbnail.jpg "I Am 8 Bit: 2008")
