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Blizzard Worldwide Invitational: Now featuring live Q&A panels with the developers
Yeah, it's called the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational, but the more we learn about this Blizzard-hosted gathering, the more it starts looking a bit more like Blizzcon '08. Sure, there's all the tournaments you'd expect, but there's a lot more too. We've already talked about the goody bag, but there's one thing that jumps right off the events page for anyone who's starved for WoTLK news: live discussion panels with Blizzard developers! Says the site, "developers will be discussing such topics as gameplay, lore and art and giving the audience a chance to pose questions and give comments." Sounds familiar, doesn't it? It also sounds very promising. We got a lot of pretty juicy WoTLK information from the last round of developer panels at Blizzcon, so we can probably expect more of the same at these panels, only moreso, since we'll be that much closer to the release of the expansion. It looks like June 28th and 29th are going to be very good days to be a Blizzard fan. Even if you can't make it to France, be sure keep an eye on WoW Insider. We're sure to have the all the great WoW Information that's sure to come from these panels.
Ye olde loot drama
Andrek posted an interesting thought on the forums: remember loot drama? Sure, there's still loot drama floating around-- as long as there is more players than loot at each boss drop, there will always be loot drama. And maybe this is just nostalgia rearing its ugly head, but it seems like Andrek is right-- Molten Core was home to far more loot drama (Rogue weapon! No, Warrior weapon! No, Hunter weap!) than Outland's raids have been.There's a few reasons for this. As players note later in the thread, Blizzard is much, much better at itemization now than they were back when we were raiding Ragnaros. And we're all in 10 and 25 man groups rather than 40 man-- fewer people means fewer arguments about who gets what. Not to mention that there's so much more loot now (and so many more ways to get it), that even if you lose that roll to a Hunter, you still get Heroic badges to turn in, or you've still got your Arena rating to count on.It seems like loot actually means a little less now than it used to, and that's a great change. It's too bad that the old "hunter weapon" joke might actually be becoming obsolete, but less loot drama means more fun, and no guildleader will argue with that one.
Sony, Immersion in talks to get SIXAXIS rumbling
Man, hasn't this one been a rollercoaster? After months in the courtroom, large sums of money being resentfully exchanged, and Immersion laughing all the way to the bank, it seems like the two firms have finally got over their beef with one another and are ready to make things happen -- officially. This slowly developing friendship has been waiting in the works for some time now, but according to a reported blurb by Sony's US PR head honcho Dave Karraker, the company is "currently in discussions with Immersion on how it can incorporate their technologies into Sony's products," but unfortunately, he concluded by informing us that "no timetable was set." Still, the inclusion of rumble features on PSOne and PS2 dual shock controllers in the latest PS3 firmware all but substantiate the post-lawsuit relationship, so we can't imagine (okay, so we can) this debacle dragging out too much longer.[Via PS3Fanboy]
Apple TV and iPhone forums open at Apple Discussions
Did your brand new iTV just go on the iFritz? Or possibly your iPhone took a cue from Mr. Jobs and prank called Japa- Wait, they aren't out yet?Well, maybe these two shiny new pre-release Apple Discussion forums, one for the Apple TV and another for the iPhone, will still come in handy for chatting about everything you need before you lay down your credit card(s). Topics are already flying in these forums, such as whether the iPhone's EDGE data speed is really all that bad, how much the data plan will cost in the first place and how to get your DVD movies into iTunes for transmission to the Apple TV. With all this chatter going on already, you should be well-prepared once these products actually land.
Another potential fix for Intel Mac + Airport station problems
If you're using an Intel Mac with any of Apple's AirPort base stations, you might have noticed some 'less than stellar' performance after updating to 10.4.8, as well as wonky connection problems that Apple tried issuing a support doc for. As an owner of both a MacBook and an Intel Core 2 Duo iMac, I can personally vouch that Apple's doc has a ways to go before it solves this most frustrating of wireless problems.While troubleshooting this issue over the weekend, I came across a few new threads at Apple's discussion forums for AirPort and, more specific to my setup, the AirPort Express. In particular, this AirPort Express-related thread contains some theories and potential solutions from other users in a similar boat. Being that it is now Wednesday, I'm happy to say one of them seems to be working well for me so far, though your mileage may obviously vary. Here's a rundown of my personal setup and the remedy that's bringing some sanity back to my wireless world: typically, I roll with WPA2 Personal security, and since these sketchy connection issues began I've been playing with settings like Interference Robustness and adjusting my APE's (AirPort Express) channel, etc., but to no avail. As it turns out, users in these forums are beginning to suspect wireless security (at least WPA, not sure about WEP, which seems to be making the ill-advised list these days anyway) as part of the problem, so I simply reset my station with no security. For the past three days, this setup has been working like a charm, though it's understandable if no security simply isn't an option for some users. To help keep our network to ourselves, I turned on 'Create a closed network' in the AirPort tab of the AirPort Admin Utility (that's Apple-speak for "hide SSID"), which simply meant I had to type in my network's name manually from the AirPort menubar item - but you should only have to do this once.Again, YMMV, but there are a few potential solutions in Apple's discussion forums for these increasingly frustrating AirPort connectivity issues. Let's hope we don't have to keep jury-rigging our base stations for long, and Apple can issue a fix so the "it just works" reputation can actually apply to these things again.
