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Infinity Blade: Dungeons gameplay revealed
Our friends at Joystiq have procured the first gameplay footage of Epic's followup to the popular Infinity Blade series, called Infinity Blade: Dungeons, and you can get a look at it below. As you can see, it's set in the same world as the first two games, but features a completely different take on gameplay, using gestures to fight baddies from a top-down view rather than a fixed camera. There are also some interesting crafting mechanics, like rubbing out imperfections on a blade you're making, or tapping dents in metal to clear them off. Infinity Blade: Dungeons was announced at the iPad 3 Apple event, and is supposed to be out later on this year.
MechWarrior Online dev Q&A covers beta, grouping, and combat damage
MechWarrior Online's devs aren't quite ready to disclose specifics on the game's minimum specs or beta process, but news for both is coming "soon." These vague assurances were the anomaly in a recent community Q&A, during which Piranha Games President Russ Bullock and Creative Director Bryan Ekman spilled on all of the minutia that fans were dying to know. The duo said that they're "working very hard" to get MWO servers into every major region and that information about beta will be coming next week. They did confirm that there will be an open beta at some juncture, however. Other details disclosed included the fact that players can form groups of up to 12 'Mechs, that legs cannot be blown off (but can be immobilized), and that the launch matchmaking system will be very basic and won't take into account player skill or records.
EA: The Old Republic not launching by July 1st
Fan site Darth Hater has a bit of cold water to throw on the fires of Star Wars: The Old Republic fans who thought the highly anticipated MMORPG might actually launch prior to July 1st. It seems as if Eric Brown, CFO of TOR publisher Electronic Arts, quashed that long shot in a speech at today's Lazard Capital Markets Technology and Media Conference. If you think that was a mouthful, Brown's quote is as well, but that isn't stopping it from making the blogsphere rounds this afternoon. "So we said it's going to launch sometime in calendar, but not within Fiscal 11. So that basically pens down between, you know, April 1st and December 31st of this calendar year. It's also reasonable to infer that it's not in our Q1 guidance. We gave Q1 Fiscal 11, Fiscal 12 non-gap revenue guidance, minus 39 minus 44 cents and I think it's not unreasonable to infer that it's not included in that 90 day period," Brown said. So, for the three of you who actually expected BioWare's Star Wars opus this summer, we're sorry. For everyone else, it's back to the guessing game regarding release dates.
Rise and Shiny recap: Sacred Seasons 2
Each week Rise and Shiny asks you to download and try a different free-to-play game, chosen by me, Beau Hindman. Some of the games will be far out of your gaming comfort zone, and some will pleasantly surprise you. We will meet each Tuesday and Friday night at 8 PM Central time, followed by this column the Sunday after. I welcome any suggestions for games, either in the comments or at beau@massively.com. There seems to be some confusion as to what the point of this column is. Just to clarify, my job with this column is to act like an actual newbie, to find small or unusual games, and to report on my findings after one week of play. While this might seem a bit harsh, I am very upfront about my intentions and think that the experience that a new player would have within a week of play is not only valid, but one of the most important times for a player. Unfortunately, this means that sometimes I will play a game in ways it was never intended, or I will review a game without knowing what might come further down the road. I generally stay away from the game's website and only gather information from the offerings in-world. This means that, when I do find amazing games, they have done a darn fine job. This can also mean that, as in the case of Sacred Seasons 2, I stumble across a game that is very much in development.
First look at Final Fantasy on the iPhone
Now that Plants vs. Zombies is out on the App Store, the new hotness to wait for is going to be Square's Final Fantasy. Courtesy of the guys over at Touch Arcade (who I'm disappointed I didn't get to meet at Macworld), here's the first trailer and screenshots of the retro RPG running on the iPhone. The games are definitely updated (the original game ran on the NES, and clearly the graphics above look better than that), but as for exactly what the differences are, or how they'll be released (will we get both in the same purchase?), we'll have to wait and see. No date yet either -- all Square-Enix says right now is "soon." Still, if you're a Final Fantasy fan and the video above doesn't get your blood pumping, time to check your pulse. Can't wait to replay these old favorites on Apple's much newer handheld devices.
Patch 3.3 PTR: Character copy is up, but not so fast
A few readers have reported in to say that character copies are currently up for what we presume to be the patch 3.3 PTR (not that surprising, considering that Blizzard has been forthcoming with Icecrown info today), but before you go running over to send your character racing to meet Arthas, don't forget that usually in this situation, character copies get wiped before the PTR goes up anyway. You can try a copy, but don't be surprised if, when the realm finally does go up and Blizzard is ready, you have to do it again.That said, this is a pretty good sign that the PTR is just around the corner -- Blizzard's got the content in a workable state, and they're just about ready to let us have a look at it and run it through the ringer for them. Icecrown or bust! Thanks, Low!
Guessing on the patch 3.1 release
bridges_squares wants to know, and we're getting really, really close, so let's finally go out on that limb, shaky as it may be: when's the patch coming out? Turpster predicted it would be this past Tuesday on the WoW Insider Show last week (since Noblegarden and the equipment manager got delayed, he figured they wanted to hurry for a release), but obviously no dice on that one. And on the other end of things, April 26th is the date we're told Noblegarden will start, so it's a pretty good guess we'll see the patch by then.If you follow that line of reasoning, that just leaves the next two Tuesdays, April 14th and 21st. And since we had rolling restarts last week, it seems like maintenance this week will bring us the patch on Tuesday, the 14th. But of course there are other factors in here: the PTR should go down before the patch comes up, and since the PTR it still up, we be waiting until the 21st. Also, just because Blizzard said Noblegarden on the 26th doesn't mean they won't delay it again, so we may still see the patch on the 28th or after that. And Tuesdays are usually when the live realms get patched (Fridays are usually when the patch the PTR, in my experience), but technically they could do it anytime, right?So let's do a poll. I'm going to go with Tuesday the 21st (since there's no sign of the PTR going down yet), but when do you think patch 3.1 will drop? And no, "when it's ready" is not an option -- we'll just assume (hopefully correctly) Blizzard will make sure of that anyway.%Poll-28913%
Arena Season 5 to close soon
We've been hearing an awful lot about Ulduar and patch 3.1 lately. As such, this announcement is really not a surprise. Vaneras and Bornakk posted on the forums today to warn us all that Season 5 is drawing near an end. The current season should close at the same time 3.1 drops, or very shortly afterward. (I'd guess "very shortly afterward" means "the following Tuesday.") Your Arena points will reset with the season transition, though your Honor points will remain banked. The announcement doesn't set a specific date. He just says "soon." Since we traditionally get at least two weeks' warning before an official season ends, that does mean that the patch probably won't drop for at least three. And since Noblegarden has been expanded on the PTR, then I expect the patch to hit and season to wrap up in the beginning of April.We haven't heard details about season-end rewards yet. That's important because we don't demonstrably know whether those rewards are going to be based on personal rating, team rating, or even the Match-Making Rating. The details of season-end rewards tend to fluctuate a little, but the best Arena teams can probably expect a title. The very, very best can expect the Arena mount. However, we don't know if it'll be a Nether Drake or maybe even a Proto-Drake. We'll let you know as we find out more.
Larger default backpack "very possible" in the future
Just about everyone playing World of Warcraft will be happy to hear this news: Eyonix says that it's 'very possible' that we'll be able to get our hands on a bigger backpack at some point in the future. Though the cynic in me says that 'very possible it'll happen eventually' is just a more positive way of saying 'we have no plans for that at this time,' I'll force myself to stay optimistic on this one.I've sort of grown out of whining about the little itty bitty default backpack simply because it's been there forever, but I'll be absolutely stoked if they ever let it scale or let you replace it with a bigger bag. Eyonix says that we should be proud of our trusty 16 slot, and I suppose that's sort of true. It's been with me through Molten Core and Ahn'Qiraj, through Naxxramas and the Black Temple and all of that jazz, but to be honest? It's getting kind of gross. It has developed a stench. I think it's been coated in slime and ichor a few too many times. If I could finally toss it out, that would be just great.
A Simple Re-Quest bugged
I know you'll never believe this, but Blizzard has identified a bug in tracking one of the achievements. On the Achievements forum Tigole noted that zoning into a battleground will sometimes cause the counter to reset for "A Simple Re-Quest." For this achievement you must complete five dailies in a row. The known issue will be fixed in the upcoming patch 3.0.3 but Tigole recommends that if you are keen on earning this achievement in the meantime you may want to avoid entering the battlegrounds. It will be easy to complete 5 dailies after the patch, so it's not a huge deal. I am concerned that Blizzard isn't getting to the heart of the bug, though. There seems to be more to it than battlegrounds. Though I haven't done any battlegrounds since the patch was released and have completed several dailies each day, I have not been awarded this achievement. I've been too busy doing dailies, heroics, and daily heroics.This was followed by one of many apologies made by Blizzard in recent weeks. When asked the simple request for a 3.0.3 release date, Tigole gave the entirely unexpected answer: Soonish. We'll see it when it's ready.
Bornakk doesn't outright deny the July 3rd rumor
Of course, he hasn't confirmed it, either. Ever since that German CM apparently hinted at a July 3rd start date for the WoTLK Beta at the Worldwide Invitational, people have been searching for further confirmation or denial of the rumor. Bornakk, in true Blizzard style, has been staying mum, saying only that a date for the beta test has yet to be announced. When someone expressed fear that we'd only hear about the beta at Blizzcon, Bornakk assured them that Blizzcon is not the only place to release information, but reiterated that there's no actual start date for the beta announced yet. On a later thread, when someone said that the WoTLK Beta would start this week, he linked back to that same thread, once again not outright denying it, but saying only that it had not yet been announced. So what does this mean, exactly?
Did you win?
Probably not. But if you did guess March 25th as the date patch 2.4 was released you might have an email from our own Elizabeth Harper in your inbox in the next few days. So how did you all get to guess March 25th as the magical date?Some of you might have just pulled the date out of a hat. I can't really blame you if you did, since Blizzard has been notorious for releasing things "when they're ready." WoWWiki even has a page for the often-quoted blue response to people asking when the patch will be released: "soon."Of course, if you took my route, you would have hunkered down and done some good old math and figured out that the trend was leading towards a March 25th release date. I was, ahem, right. /dance /cheer /drinkaglassofcelebratorywineNow of course the real test of any mathematical prediction is to see if it holds up over time. When the next patch is announced (if there is one), we'll take another mathematical look at the numbers and try to predict when that patch will go live.All in all, it was quite a fun little contest. Many thanks to the over 900 of you who entered. Check your mailboxes, you might have won! For those wondering, the image is the "I Win" button they'll be putting in patch 2.5. We know this is going to happen because of all the nerfs in 2.4... (I'm kidding, but flame away.)
"Patch 2.4 = soon," says Eyonix
So as you may remember, the majority of our readers expected patch 2.4 to fall on March 18th, which, being that today is St. Patrick's Day, is tomorrow. Also, this weekend, the PTR got taken down (although Blizzard claimed it was because more testing was happening on the tournament test realm -- the TTR -- and not because the patch was ready for prime time). And, oh yeah, the patch has already started downloading in the Background Downloader.So are we looking at patch 2.4 tomorrow? Frankly, we have no idea. I tend to say no, because it seems like Blizzard wants to do a little more testing, but I've been wrong before, and even though I think tomorrow is too soon, I can't think of what more testing Blizzard might need to do. For Blizzard's part, Eyonix says that patch 2.4 is coming soon (and that season 4 in the Arenas is coming relatively "not soon"). Then again, Blizzard's standard answer for when anything is coming is usually "soon," so who knows what they mean by that.If it doesn't come tomorrow, then we're definitely looking at next Tuesday, since it seems that Blizzard is almost completely ready to go live. But if our readers are right (and my original guess is as well -- I originally said it would drop before Easter, which is this Sunday), we'll see all those PTR changes (and the Sunwell!) on the live realms tomorrow.
