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Iron Galaxy Studios' Wreckateer leaked in ratings, to be published by Microsoft
A game called Wreckateer has been spotted in the Australian ratings classification system, listed as being developed by Iron Galaxy and published by Microsoft. Iron Galaxy Studios is a company that's done a lot of technical consulting for other game developers -- it recently helped Capcom bring Street Fighter 3: Third Strike Online to digital platforms, not to mention work on You Don't Know Jack. According to its webpage, Iron Galaxy is also working on some yet-to-be-announced projects with Microsoft and Twisted Pixel, and it appears as though Wreckateer is at least one of those projects. That's all we know about the game thus far, other than that it's an original title, and it's been rated General for all audiences. Wreckateer, whatever it is, was just classified this week, so presumably we'll be hearing more about it soon.
Leaderboard: Hybrid vs. specialist
When it comes to that all-too-important decision at the character creation screen, you must decide off the bat whether or not you're going to mold your new hero into a finely tune specialized machine or to pick a class that sports as much flexibility and gas-saving technology as a hybrid allows. This decision has long-reaching consequences on your future journeys with the character, so choosing wisely means knowing yourself and your playstyle intimately. But which is better, overall? Is it better to gun for a specialized class? After all, this allows you to be the absolute best you can be at a singular role, to get those high numbers and fulfill your purpose well. Specialists are prized in endgame activities, since being at the top of one's form is vital to helping your group succeed. However, are hybrids ultimately better due to their jack-of-all-trades flexibility? Is having the option to switch between roles on the fly more crucial to individual and group success than being locked into one thing only? Hybrids also allow for more choice down the road, especially when you might be getting bored of a particular role and want to experiment with something else. So which will top today's Leaderboard: hybrids or specialists? Hit the jump to cast your vote!
First Look: CourseNotes for iPad
CourseNotesApp developer Jon Klein was kind enough to send over this video of his upcoming iPad app. Aimed at students, this app not only simplifies iPad note taking, but helps keep those notes organized by time and subject. I showed this video around to a student-heavy group and the video received an overwhelming thumbs up. "I think the most exciting thing about the iPad is that it's like the iPhone but it's bring it into new areas, where the iPhone wasn't practical," Klein told me over the phone. "Education is a perfect example of that. The iPhone OS will be a great platform for taking notes but the iPhone form wasn't there." With the iPad-based CourseNotesApp, now it can be.
TUAW First Look: Digg's iPhone app
Digg released its official iPhone app this morning, and after playing with it for a little while, I can tell you that it does what it says on the box: it will let you browse, interact, and comment on the popular news aggregator without many problems (there was one major issue -- I'll mention it in a second). However, in general, the app isn't all that different from the interface they released a while back. Sure, there are a few app-y touches, but mostly the app just feels like a Digg-specific browser. I suppose that's what they were going for. The app works pretty easily -- you can dive in and view the top, recent, or upcoming stories in any of Digg's categories, and clicking on each headline sends you to an in-app browser with the page displayed (as best it can be -- of course Flash movies don't work, and lots of the really popular links on Digg are murdered via bandwidth already). At the bottom of each page, you'll find buttons to like or dislike the story (sorry, Digg or Bury), a button to save the story if you're logged in to your Digg account, and the option to share the link. When you select the share option, you can send it off to the iPhone's clipboard, Twitter, Facebook, or Email.
Jarod Shadowsong, the biggest hero you've never heard of
Call me a lore noob (and that's fine, Alex will heartily agree with you), but like Loregy.com suspected, I had never before heard of Jarod Shadowsong. We pretty much all know about his sister Maeiv, thanks to her little tirade against Illidan and the big part that played in the last expansion. But Jarod might be Azeroth's biggest unsung hero. And considering that all of the rumors point to the next expansion diving into the Maelstrom and/or the Emerald Dream, not to mention an eventual showdown with Sargeras, he could also play a very important part in Azeroth's future.Jarod led the charge in the War of the Ancients, a huge battle thousands of years ago in Azeroth's past that culminated in Jarod's taking full command of the Kaldorei Resistance, a one-on-one battle with Archimonde (players have faced him, too), and eventually the collapse of the Well of Eternity. An event that led directly to, you guessed it, the creation of the Maelstrom. See how it's all coming together?Loregy has more speculation: just like during Jarod's time, the Horde and Alliance are growing apart, and if Sargeras decides to bite back after what happened in the Burning Crusade, we'll need a leader to combine the troops. Thrall and Wrynn are each powerful leaders in their own right, but Jarod is the big daddy of generals. And if big trouble goes down in the next expansion, he could be the key to saving the world again. And the guy doesn't even have a picture on WoWWiki!
Living without General chat
I have a confession to make: all the whining, questions, and confusion that's been in General chat for the last few days? I haven't heard any of it. As soon as I logged in after the expansion, I typed "/leave general" and strangely enough, haven't looked back. I usually enjoy General -- it reminds me that I'm not playing a singleplayer game, and most of the comments there, while not really the smartest, are at least pretty entertaining. I figured if you're going to play a game with other people, you might as well give them the opportunity to talk with you.But Northrend has been different -- I didn't want the inane chatter, the constant stream of questions (sometimes answered, usually not), and the occasional desperate requests. I wanted to be in Northrend by myself, more or less, and explore the world as if I wasn't on the same server as thousands of people. And it's been worthwhile, for the most part -- while I've dived back in there once or twice just to check and see if certain quests are bugged for anyone else, I've mostly stayed out of there, and I think it's made the game better.Some of you will probably think I'm late to the game -- you may have removed the General channel on day one, and the Trade and World Defense channels along with it (I'm keeping the Trade channel, though -- when I am in cities, I kind of appreciate the bustling back and forth, and I've found a few deals in there). For the moment, though, I appreciate a quieter Northrend. No General for me, thanks.
Enough with the yelling
I had a great time at the Stormwind Stampede yesterday (and pictures and videos from the event should be up soon). But here's a little tip we all picked up from running almost 500 Tauren around the world: to shut down all the yelling, you can just right click on the title of your open chat window, and then go into the "Channels" menu to shut down /yells just like any other chat channel. You can also turn off Guild chat this way as well, just in case your guildies start threatening to spoil Harry Potter, but you don't actually want to /gquit to get away from them. Unfortunately, turning off yell won't get rid of the big red text bubbles when people are near, but all you have to do then is just turn around.Of course, /ignore still works, and my little level one Tauren now has a bigger /ignore list than any of my other toons, thanks to some rowdy spammers yesterday. And /leave General will get you out of Barrens chat (just as /join General will get you back in when you finally arrive in Ashenvale). And I don't have that much of a problem with this stuff (only when I group up with 500 cows), but if you're really tired of chat spam, Devnull might be an addon worth looking at.It's not real complicated-- those of you who are experts at chatting (or have just been given a headache before by all the yelling) probably already knew it. But it was definitely a helpful little tip yesterday to sort through all the spam in the channels.
Blizzard banning players in game for forum stupidity?
You may have missed the ruckus on the General forums this weekend-- and if you did, consider yourself lucky. Some idiot (at least we're pretty sure it was just one guy on his many alts) posted a lot of junk on Saturday about a story right here at WoW Insider. We won't bore you with everything they said, but the gist of it is exactly the kind of harassment that Ezra's father was trying to avoid-- players complaining that they weren't cool enough (even with a house that hadn't burnt down, and, you know, their health) to get the epic mount that Ezra did. Yes, it seems Penny Arcade's theory came into effect yet again.Fortunately, it's gone now-- the fever pitch hit on Saturday morning, and it wasn't till early Saturday afternoon that a CM finally showed up on the boards and deleted that junk. We can only suppose that if they had hired someone to take Tseric's place yet, it might have been taken care of sooner.But here's the best part-- while this weekend's incident was far from the first shameful occurrence on the official forums, it might be the first in which a player got penalized not just with a forums ban, but with the loss of an in game account. Iroc says his brother jumped in to make an Ezra troll post this weekend and found his account in game disconnected.Frankly, if anyone deserves it, these losers on Saturday did. But given the way that Blizzard's rep replies in the thread, it doesn't seem likely that they're banning in game for idiocy on the forums just yet-- more likely that Iroc's brother had an unrelated technical problem. Considering the way the forums are, however, it just might be a possibility worth considering.
