Alex Ziebart

Stories By Alex Ziebart

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  Entertainment

  Entertainment By Alex Ziebart

  Play Diablo 1 with World of Warcraft models in StarCraft 2

  The StarCraft II Arcade feature, a tool intended to help the community highlight quality custom maps and game modes created with the StarCraft modding tools, has recently gone into beta. Coinciding with that beta, Blizzard has launched a contest that requires you to play, rate, and review an Arcade game for a chance to win a Heart of the Swarm beta key. One of the delightful custom game modes that has become an Arcade chart-topper is an incestuous mix of all of Blizzard's major franchises: It's the first Diablo game ported into StarCraft II using World of Warcraft art assets for the 3-D models. The gameplay doesn't match the original Diablo click-for-click, but the core mechanics and all of the sound files have been carried from one game to the next, including Deckard Cain's signature "stay awhile and listen." StarCraft II shoutcaster Husky recently featured the game mode on his YouTube channel, and you can watch his 18+ minute preview/review embedded below.

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  Gaming

  Gaming By Alex Ziebart

  Learn the basics of Diablo III gameplay

  Massively's sister site WoW Insider brings us this special bonus article tonight on the basics of Diablo III for folks who normally play MMOs like World of Warcraft. Enjoy the rest of Joystiq's WoW team's Diablo coverage over on WoW Insider, and stay tuned for our own Diablo III launch roundups tomorrow morning! Since Diablo II was released 12 years ago, it's safe to say that Diablo III will be the first Diablo title many people will have ever played. It's one of the most anticipated titles of the season and is attracting countless new players to the genre. We've received a number of questions asking how this game is even played -- and if it has anything in common with your favorite MMOs. We have you covered. The core of Diablo gameplay is the mouse click. You do everything from combat to looting to movement with your mouse, and your interactions with your keyboard are extremely minimal overall. On Twitter recently, many Diablo diehards have mentioned they were buying a new mouse specifically to use with Diablo III -- and that's not a bad idea. No, we're not talking a brand-new $80 Razer Naga; we're talking some $10 to $15 thing you can pick up off of a department store shelf. You want a mouse that you're not going to mourn when your buttons inevitably give out from the mountain of abuse you're about to unleash upon them. Grab something cheap and disposable so that when it dies, you will consider it a victory -- just another technological corpse for the bone pile.

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  Gaming

  Gaming By Alex Ziebart

  Massively wishes you a happy Halloween

  Halloween is probably second only to Christmas in terms of holiday popularity. Ask just about anybody what their favorite holiday is, and they'll probably list one of those two (if it fits the culture). Naturally, as MMO players, we have fun celebrating it in our virtual worlds just like we do in the real world. And boy, this year, do we ever celebrate. Just about every active MMO out there had (or has) something going on. The 2009 lineup included: Final Fantasy XI - Harvest Festival City of Heroes - The Deadly Apocalypse EverQuest II - Nights of the Dead Fallen Earth - Days of the Dead Warhammer Online - Daemon Moon Rising Aion - Harvest Revel Guild Wars - The Mad King's Revelry Runes of Magic - Pumpkin Festival Lineage - Cavern of Chaos Lineage II - Spooks and Scarecrows Age of Conan - Nights of Lost Souls EverQuest - The Haunting of Norrath Legends of Norrath - Brraaaaaainss! Star Wars Galaxies - Galactic Moon Festival Exteel - Hey, sweet! Paint! Free Realms - Super Spooktacular Champions Online - Blood Moon Most of these events last a few days into November, so if there's any one in particular you're dying to experience, you might still have a chance if you have a subscription laying around. If you're not able to visit any of these in person, we have screenshots from many of these events in the gallery below. Enjoy! %Gallery-76860%

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  Gaming

  Gaming By Alex Ziebart

  E3 2009: Star Wars: The Old Republic demonstration part 2

  The presentation quickly made its way back to the emphasis on story: The two classes shown, the Bounty Hunter and the Smuggler, are on separate factions. The Bounty Hunter is Imperial, Smugglers are members of the Republic. If you've played the game the whole way through as a Smuggler, you can go do it again as a Bounty Hunter and the experience will be completely unique.

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  Gaming

  Gaming By Alex Ziebart

  E3 2009: Star Wars: The Old Republic demonstration

  The trailer for Star Wars: The Old Republic blew nerds around the world away, and has managed to build some of the greatest hype possible for an MMO in just a few short days. The question has been asked whether or not a trailer which contains absolutely no gameplay footage should be producing that sort of hype, but that trailer wasn't all that we saw of the upcoming MMORPG at E3. A panel dedicated to The Old Republic had much more to say.The panel opened up with the stage being set: The Old Republic begins 3,000 years before the rise of Darth Vader, 300 years after the events of Knights of the Old Republic, which would give BioWare an excellent opportunity to define and expand upon key events of Star Wars "pre-history."The entire presentation laid a significant emphasis on story and story elements. Right from the beginning, the developers lay out it: RPGs have four primary elements. Exploration, combat, progression, and story. The story element is the one most overlooked in MMOs, and The Old Republic intends to address that head on. They intend to embrace story right alongside the other RPG elements. It will be a major player, and not something just used to justify the other elements. %Gallery-35033%

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