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A Mild-Mannered Reporter: The end of the city of heroes
"Name?" "Mr. Swift." The small man on the other end of the table sighed as if he'd heard the punchline too many times already. "Sir, I understand that you're unhappy about recent events, but this is a necessity. I don't want to keep you here longer than necessary, but I can throw you in jail for a night for obstructing this audit. I'm not asking for your moniker; I'm asking for your name, and it's only out of politeness." He tapped the side of his laptop for emphasis. "Now before I have to look it up -- your name." It was a little thing, really. But it felt huge. "Orson Herschel Siegal," Swift replied, purposely looking away from the auditor and searching for something in the stark white room to pull his attention away.
The end comes to Final Fantasy XIV
As of 1:00 a.m. EST today, the Final Fantasy XIV servers started the game's final event before the relaunch. At 3:00 a.m. EST, they shut down. Immediately following the shutdown, the last trailer for the game's current version was posted, showing the outcome of the final battle against the forces of the Garlean Empire by the unified Grand Companies of Eorzea. And if you've been following the game's story in any fashion, you'll probably want to see how it all ends. It's worth noting that the cutscene is both fairly long and lacking in context -- if you don't know the most recent lore of the game, you're not going to catch everything that's going on. But if you've been watching the final defense of the Eorzean city-states from inside the game or on the sidelines, you deserve a front-row seat for the last clash of armies. And even though you know how it ends, it's still going to pack a punch. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]
Patch 3.3 PTR: WoW.com's stream of the Frozen Halls
We ran our livestream of the Halls of Reflection on the PTR yesterday, and other than one little hitch (I figured I'd save us all the trouble of raiding the Lich King and just jump in and take him down myself, with disastrous consequences), it went pretty well. Turns out you need to run through the main quest to unlock the last two Frozen Halls instances, so we ended up doing all three: Forge of Souls and Pit of Saron on normal, and then the Halls of Reflection on both normal and Heroic. On the way, you can see all of the bosses, dropped loot, the various lore and questlines that weave throughout the new 5-man, and the final epic confrontation. Obviously, considering this is straight video of these instances (with commentary and audio from the game), these things are full of spoilers -- if you don't want to know what happens when you enter Icecrown Citadel, steer clear. That said, the video we recorded is after the break. You don't have to watch the whole thing (in fact, at over two hours, you'd be crazy to), as I've tagged the Forge of Souls run, the Pit of Saron run, and the final heroic Halls of Reflection run on their own. Clicking those links or the markers on the video below should take you to the specific parts of the video. Enjoy. Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.
Ring of Death: An Xbox 360 story -- Part 3
Previously on Ring of Death: The red ring of death visited a colleague's Xbox 360 for the second time. He followed the rules of Xbox replacement under warranty, received the coffin exactly "five business days" later and shipped his Xbox 360 off for repair -- again.Yesterday, the same Xbox he sent off returned to him exactly 20 days after calling to report the issue and 7 days after shipping the unit. The shell was the same (secretly marked in a few places to be sure), with some new innards that aren't broken.And so ends this Xbox 360's red ring of death story. Although there is anecdotal evidence regarding a disproportionate amount of problems with the system, emphasized by some nation's consumer advocacy programs, at least we can say the repair process (despite taking 20 days) is relatively painless. Here's hoping the anecdotal evidence doesn't start piling up after the one year warranty expires and people start having to drop $139 (plus box) to have their Xbox 360 repaired.After the break check out the "Xbox Quality Survey" sent back with the unit.See also:Ring of Death: An Xbox 360 story -- Part 1Ring of Death: An Xbox 360 story -- Part 2
