World of Warcraft Dungeons

/

Instances in WoW can be the bread and butter of the game.  Sure you can level your character through exploration (all though that is pretty limited), killing mobs and questing, but once you hit end game you spend the majority of your time in dungeons.  With this in mind the great people at Blizzard are going to bring us enhanced dungeon maps.  The new maps are laden with great information regarding the bosses that will be encountered.  We will have 3D models of the boss, lore as to why we are fighting them (you know, besides money and loot).  You will also be told meta-game information such as what abilities that the bosses can use and what loot that the bosses will drop.  This will be availble in both 5-man dungeons and raids.

Updated Boss Info huh? They all know how to kill me as it is now anyway.

Let us not forget too, that with patch 4.1.0 and Cataclysm a lot of the vanilla WoW dungeons are going to see a bit of a split up.  Examples of this will be seen in the massive dungeons such as Black Rock Depths and Maraudon.  Maraudon is going to be split into two different wings, a life area and an elemental area.  Black Rock is getting teleporters to help you move around a bit better.  We are also seeing Uldamon getting split into two sections.  This will make lower level players able to get more done in less time.  Looking foward to it when I start leveling some new toons.

Happy 25th NES

/

What is this?  Another 25th Birthday for Nintendo.  This time we have the 25 year mark from when the NES was released on the inhabitants of New York, New York.  Now 25 years later we are still playing games that got their start on this humble system.  Thanks Nintendo for changing the way we play games and we look forward to another 25 years!

L2P

/

Well it's official, the much anticipated patch 4.0.1 for World of Warcraft will be released tomorrow October 12, 2010.  Official story with all class changes can be found here at MMO-Champion.  Servers will be down for approximately twelve hours while the new patch is installed.  With all the changes that are taking place to the talent trees; it looks as if we're going to have to learn how to play our toons again.  Talent trees have been condensed and numerous "what's the best build" posts will be conducted across WoW forums everywhere.  Here's to a flawless patch release and hoping that these changes are for the better.  Cheers!

Take that Zambia - WoW Reaches 12 Million

/

You read that right.  World of Warcraft has reached a subscriber base of over 12 Million people.  This places Azeroth at number 71 on the most populated countries according to the CIA World Factbook.  That nudges Zambia out of the position.  

Lets put this in perspective for a second though.  For arguments sake lets say all 12 Million pay the $12.99 a month fee for 6 months at a time.  That means Activision-Blizzard is raking in approx $155,880,000 a month.  A MONTH!!!!  That is more money then most of us will see in our lifetime.  I guess I can see why so many people are jumping on the MMO train when they see someone making that much money.

 

WoW Geeks Rejoice!

/

ZOMG! It's a happy cupcake!?!?!After multiple rumors swirling around about Blizzard's new World of Warcraft expansion, Cataclysm, being released, Blizzard decided to put those rumors to bed.  Blizzard has officially announced that Cataclysm will in fact be released December 7, 2010.  Check out the official blue post here.  Only two months to go before the intertubes are bombarded from returning WoW players.  May these next two months fly by like it has only been two minutes.

When We Say April, We Really Mean November.

/

Can I haz in April?!?!Sad news for all you Gears of War fans out there, myself included.  Gears of War 3, the final saga in the Gears trilogy, has been pushed back till fall 2011.

When Gears 3 was unveiled at E3 this past June, EPIC Games gave us the epic news (pun intended) that Gears of War 3 would be released in April 2011.  This gave gamers enough time to complete the first two with a buddy in preparation for the final chapter.  Unfortunately, EPIC Games and Microsoft has just released a statement saying that they plan on releasing Gears 3 during the holiday season in 2011. 

Sad news for all Gears fans.  Here is that statement that was released to the press via Microsoft and Epic Games: "Gears of War 3 promises to be the biggest entertainment launch of 2011. The teams at Microsoft Game Studios and Epic Games have done great work thus far readying the title for release in the spring of 2011. However, we’ve elected to move the launch of Gears of War 3 until fall 2011 to make it the marquee title for the holiday season."  Check out the full article at the Gears of War website here.Oh noes! I can't haz in April!

After reading the statement, it sounds like a money grab by Microsoft and Epic Games.  While it may indeed just be a ploy to get more money, they are businesses.  After all, the number one priority of a business is to make money and they will make more money if they release Gears 3 next holiday season.  So while I am extremely disappointed of the delay, I understand the business decision in the holiday release.  Bummerville.

Cataclysm Coming In December???

/

Yes Please.World of Warcraft,  my drug of choice.  Recently, I haven't been needing my fix, in fact,  my subscription has been frozen for the past few months.  But, with the new patch on the horizon (Patch 4.0.1) I decided to get back into it.  Good thing too.  With all the changes that will be happening in the upcoming patch, I figured it would be good to get reacquainted with all my toons before the expansion hits. 

A lot of rumors have been swirling when exactly Cataclysm will be released.  While there has been no "official" date, the fine peeps and MMO-Champion may have discovered the release date.  In an earlier blue post from WoW, Zarhym noted that "The next Arena Season will begin for level-85 players approximately one week after the official launch of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm."  It has recently been posted that Arena Season 9 will kick off on December 14, 2010.  So, according to the blue post from Zahym, the logical release date for Cataclysm will be on December 7, 2010.  Check out the full article and the entire blue post of Zahym at MMO-Champion's web site here.

If you're like me, you cannot wait for the expansion hit store shelves.  At least patch 4.0.1 will give me enough new changes to hopefully tide me over until Cataclysm is released.  Stay tuned for any new updates on Cataclysm.

Nintendo 3DS: What Does the "3" Represent?

/

After being blown away at E3 with Nintendo's new handheld system, the Nintendo 3DS, I couldn't wait for it to hit the shelves.  Well, Nintendo has officially announced the release date and price of the system. 

On February 26, 2011, the 3DS will go on sale in Japan and we can expect the North American release shortly after that, sometime in March.  While there is no specific date in March, we officially know it will be in March.  There were rumors going around when the device was actually going to go on sale, (most people saying March 2011 to begin with) but Nintendo put those rumors to rest.Nintendo 3DS on display at E3.

To many of us out there, the release date shouldn't be too shocking, since most of us in the gaming world figured the release date would be in March.  The thing that shocked me however, was the price.  Upon release, the 3DS will cost 25,000 yen or $300.  That's right, $300!!!  So now we really know what the 3 represents, 300 big ones.  You can check the full article here at IGN's site.

While the technology is bad ass; it's going to be hard for me, and I imagine a lot of people, to fork over $300 for a handheld device.  All that being said, I still will probably try and get my hands on one when it's released.  But when you stop and think of it, the XBOX 360 cost $400 when it was released, just my two cents.

Wait... I need those two cents to help save up for my 3DS!

Goodbye Social Life, You Will Be Missed...

/

As many of you know, Civilization V was released today.  Being a huge faJust one more turn...n of the Civilization series, I purchased Civ V off Steam right away.  After putting a few hours into the game, I'm here tonight to say goodbye to my social life for awhile.  Civ V improves on everything in Civilization IV and is much more user friendly than the previous entries.  New comers and veterans alike will absolutely fall in love with this turn based strategy game.  You will definitely be at you computer until the wee hours telling yourself, "Just one more turn..."  Now if you'll excuse me, I must go back to expanding my civilization and yes I am simply Alt+Tab right now to write this quick update.