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The MMO Report: BlizzCon Special
Casey Schreiner emerged from behind his desk this week to head to Anaheim for BlizzCon. This is a good thing for those of us who didn't make it out there, because Casey brought us a little souvenir: The MMO Report BlizzCon Special. This week's MMO Report brings crowd shots (including some pretty fantastic cosplay) from inside and outside BlizzCon, before-and-after Cataclysm game footage, chats with fans, and the icing on the cake: an interview with Blizzard's Lead Game Designer Greg Street. Take a look at Blizzcon through the eyes of G4 by following along after the cut for this week's MMO Report, and don't forget you can also watch every week over at G4TV.
Disney Epic Mickey's 'Tomorrow City' revealed
G4 recently spoke with Warren Spector about Tomorrow City, a newly-revealed level in the upcoming Epic Mickey, and you can watch the interview after the break. Tomorrow City is based on Disneyland's Tomorrowland and features landmarks including the Moonliner Rocket, the Carousel of Progress and the PeopleMover. The video also shows off more 2D gameplay, plus some solid platforming challenges. "The structure of the game is very Zelda-like," says Spector, "but once you get into those action spaces, we really wanted more platforming action." Epic Mickey will be out on Wii on November 30.
Vindictus announces official launch date
Vindictus, Nexon's upcoming free-to-play title, gained a lot of attention from the very beginning. The gritty gameplay is as far from Nexon's sugary-sweet MapleStory as you can possibly get, the opening story and look of the game are pretty good, and it's free. Players have been enjoying the beta testing process, but as with any upcoming game, the big question has been "When?" G4TV provided that answer last night along with a brand-new (and ominous) trailer. The trailer contains both new and familiar footage, and it's gorgeous, but the exciting news is that we have exactly two weeks until launch. Yep, Vindictus will officially launch on October 27th. The game is still in open beta for now, but if you're like most of us at Massively, the 27th is circled in red on your calendar. Follow along after the jump for the latest trailer!
This week on the MMO Report -- Rift: Planes of Telara special
The MMO Report shakes up the formula this week as host Casey Schreiner devotes his entire show to a special look at Trion's upcoming Rift: Planes of Telara MMORPG. Featuring gameplay footage and interview snippets with producer Adam Gershowitz, the segment fills viewers in on Rift's unique backstory as well as various dynamic gameplay features including, of course, the titular planar rifts. Gershowitz also goes into detail regarding the game's classes, including the ability to "take a variety of different classes and mix them together [using] the ascended soul system." Check out all the Rift footage after the cut or at G4TV.com.
Turbine pimps Gandalf in a new LotRO commercial
G4 posted a new Lord of the Rings Online F2P commercial that's sure to leave a goofy grin on your face. In it, a crowd in a modern metropolis chants "Free Middle-earth!" outside of the LotRO offices. Inside, a cute hobbit receptionist holds down the fort until the elevator dings and the Big Guy comes out -- Gandalf, rocking a bit of the old (with his trademark hat and staff) and the new (in a swanky suit). He steps out to the crowd and delivers the words they've been longing to hear: "YOU... SHALL NOT... PAY!" Cue one staff strike and the crowd goes wild. Turbine's obviously showing a bit of its humorous side as it celebrates the new payment model. You can view the full video below and then head over to www.lotro.com to download the client.
X-Play's EVO tournament special airs tonight
In case you missed the live, streaming video of the EVO tournament, the special EVO edition of X-Play will be on G4 tonight. Even if you saw every fight, this sounds worthwhile -- it's more than just fighting game footage!
SOE suffers cutbacks as 35 employees are laid off
Four percent doesn't sound like a lot, but when it comes to Sony Online Entertainment, it represents nearly three dozen employees who no longer have a job. G4 reports that the company has let 35 people go from its full-time workforce in an effort to "better align the company's resources against areas of growth that meet consumer demand in today's online market as well as improve operational efficiency." The company is being tight-lipped as to the specifics of the cuts, including who was let go and from which development teams. This may come as a surprise to some, especially when you consider that SOE is riding high off of its Free Realms mega-success and is poised to launch several new titles including The Agency, DC Universe Online and Clone Wars Adventures. Hopefully we'll hear more details soon, but in the meantime you can read the full announcement over at G4.
Stockton: Max of 6 bosses per raid in Cataclysm
Some very important information was released about Cataclysm yesterday on a G4 Xplay segment, discussing a Cataclysm storyline preview. However, some awesome pieces of news came out unrelated to the story at all. Check out the video to hear Tom Chilton, Cory Stockton and others discuss some pretty cool reveals. The two new important pieces of information were: Auto-quest complete technology: Players are able to complete quests in the field and immediately begin the next quest in the chain, without running back to the quest giver for the next step in the quest, allowing multiple quests to be completed without returning home. Think of it as Archmage Vargoth's staff on steroids. Raid boss quantity limits: Every raid in Cataclysm will have no more than six raid bosses per instance. Instances like Icecrown Citadel and Ulduar in boss number are gone, and the Serpentshrine Caverns/Tempest Keep model is back in. With a reduced number of raid bosses per raid, three full raids will be available at Cataclysm's launch. Very interesting, especially the capped raid boss numbers. If you never played World of Warcraft during The Burning Crusade, you missed the proto-concept to these smaller, but more numerous, raids. Serpentshrine and Tempest Keep added up in boss numbers to a full 11-12 boss raid, but was separated into two encounters. Blizzard can now itemize across multiple raids instead of just one environment.
SanDisk works it harder, unveils G4 and P4 solid state drives
Still haven't dropped a speedy solid state drive into your PC? SanDisk might just tempt you with its latest batch. At Computex 2010 the memory manufacturer announced its fourth-generation SSD lineup, consisting of the laptop-sized SSD G4 and the diminutive SSD P4 -- those tiny mini-SATA netbook boards you see chilling outside Jefferson's posh, nickel-plated mansion. The former will arrive in up to 256GB capacities with 220MB / sec read speeds and 160MB / sec writes (a sizable bump from prior numbers) while the latter range in size from 8GB to 128GB. Both feature the usual set of marketing buzzwords indicating speed and reliability, and both are slated to enter the OEM market in Q3 2010. That said, considering SanDisk's recent track record here, we wonder if the company meant third quarter next year. PR after the break.
Kratos offers some 'Sex Therapy' in X-Play music video
Real or not, this God of War music video is absolutely hilarious. Set to Robin Thicke's "Sex Therapy," the music video made its premiere on X-Play tonight. We've learned two things from watching this clip: 1) Kratos' character design looks ridiculous outside of the game's context and 2) Kratos should never, ever show his "softer" side. Too bad this video isn't going to be used by Sony for promotional purposes. As revealed by this behind-the-scenes video, it's a rather elaborate experiment conducted by G4. It is quite possibly the greatest thing the network has ever done, and deserves a look after the break.
Turn your old Macs into clocks, lamps and more
We've written about the recycled Mac clocks that pixelthis on Etsy has created before, but this one is definitely worth a mention. This particular piece combines an old iBook G4 with an Apple mouse to create a time piece that's complete with a working pendulum. Current pieces include a clock made from a recycled iMac G4 motherboard. Looking for other handcrafted Apple goods for your sweetheart this Valentine's Day? How about a cap honoring Apple of a bygone era? Or an Alfred Hitchock decal for your MacBook? Or if you want a custom-made laptop case, here's one made out of denim. If you need a new lamp for your desk, try one made from an old G4 iMac. If your special someone really desires jewelry, you can always get some Apple cufflinks or earrings. [Via The Daily What]
Gearbox: Borderlands art style helped 'make a certain leap of faith'
The Borderlands crew at Gearbox Software is making the post-mortem interview rounds, and this time Aaron Thibault, Stephen Palmer and Matthew Armstrong stopped to chat with G4. The interview has some excellent insight into the making of the game: The team originally was finishing up the Halo PC port when they realized that Bungie had dynamically coded their guns, and wondered what you could do if you dynamically created guns from that code. "Halo meets Diablo" was the answer, and that was Gearbox's premise from the beginning. They also talk about the famous art style change, and say that the current animated look actually helped players get into the game -- they could "make a certain leap of faith into an understanding that the crazier and wackier and more fun things can exist in this world." And they say that for future installments, they are taking player feedback into account: Both a mini-map and more levels are two things that they didn't quite expect such a call for, so it's a safe bet that we'll see those features in any future installments of the "important" franchise. Please?
Flickr Find: MacBook Generations
Oh man. I'm tempted to just sit back and let you marvel at the beauty, history, innovation, and intelligence that is on display in the picture above, taken and posted by Robert Donovan on Flickr (and be sure to check out the alternate view, too -- I actually like the alt view better, given that it shows all of the ports over time). But just in case you're wondering: Unibody 13" 2.53Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro 15" 400Mhz G4 Titanium PowerBook 15" 1.25Ghz G4 Aluminum PowerBook 15" 2.5Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro Amazing stuff -- think of the engineering, manufacturing work, and design arguments that went into those little bands of metal, and all of the good work and art that has since been created with them. Beautiful.
iLove the iMac iLamp
Happy New Year, everybody! It's 2010, and that means we're all riding around in flying cars, shooting laser guns at each other, and we all have robot servants to do all of our work for us. Oh wait, that didn't work out as planned, did it? At least we've got this awesome lamp, which was made from the old iMac G4 (which was actually nicknamed the "iLamp") that had the monitor moving around on a swivel. The bottom base case has been turned into the shade, but the arm is still there, ready to position the light wherever you want it to go. Pretty sweet. Unfortunately, if you want one of your own, you'll have to hurry: as of this writing, there's only one left for sale on this Etsy page, and that one will set you back $75. But if you've got an old iMac sitting around and a little electric know-how, it shouldn't be too hard to rig one together yourself. Or you could just get your robot servant to do it for you!
G4 talks to Blizzard about five years of WoW
We are quickly approaching the fifth anniversary of World of Warcraft's release (my calendar has it on the 23rd of November), and G4 has gotten a head start on celebrating -- they sent Morgan Webb over to Blizzard headquarters to talk to the team, including Tom Chilton, Alex Afrasiabi, and Jeff Kaplan, about what things have been like in the last five years since WoW's launch. There's nothing super groundbreaking in here, but there is lots of reminiscing about the game's early thinking -- Chilton talks about how dual specs were never even considered as an idea (until they, you know, were) and what things were like in the early post-launch days. Pretty stressful, sounds like. Afrasiabi talks about how the quest team puts together and tracks all of the game's quests (he mentions both Metzen and the game's historian as the "lorekeepers" of the game), and the fact that they've put together "millions of words" of story and background lore for the game at large. He specifically talks about Cataclysm and replacing questlines, and says that if something does get removed from the game, they're hoping to replace it with something better, but most "fan favorites" will stay. And finally, Jeff Kaplan looks back on the early game itself, from unfinished zones to broken balance to launch day exhaustion. G4 teases something about the next MMO project, but all he says is that he can't talk about it. Oh well -- if we can't look forward, at least we get a nice look back from the folks at Blizzard who've been there since the beginning. You can see all four of the videos after the break.
Star Wars: The Old Republic lead writer Daniel Erickson on scope of the project
If you've been following along with our coverage of Star Wars: The Old Republic you'll know that BioWare has placed incredible emphasis on writing for SWTOR. As the game is fully voiced, the complete script is roughly 40 novels in length. G4tv's The Feed has a GamesCom 2009 video interview with SWTOR Lead Writer Daniel Erickson that explains more about what a huge undertaking the game has been from a writing perspective. Erickson explains that BioWare's challenges aren't necessarily about having the ability to pull this off, it's more a matter of scale, particularly with the French and German localizations. He tells G4, "We think we've got the biggest voice over project in entertainment history."
Want a bigger friends list? Stop playing Halo 2 online!
Speaking to G4 late last week, a "high-level Microsoft source" said that the real reason Microsoft hasn't upped the friends list limit on 360 thus far has more to do with people still playing Halo 2 on Xbox than limitations of its current console. Reportedly, the source says that Microsoft is still undecided on when to finally pull the plug and add a feature gamers have been requesting for a long time now.The company has made it clear in the past that it would like to implement the feature, even going so far as to explain to us at CES 2009 that "original Xbox games were coded to be limited to 100 friends and that limit was brought into the current generation." According to G4's source, the shuttering of Halo 2's online could come after Halo 3: ODST drops this September, giving Microsoft two Halo titles to offer on the Xbox 360. The source also contends that the real decision to keep Halo 2 online is in the hands of gamers. What say you, gamers?!%Poll-33098%[Via Shacknews]
Etsy creator turns old Macs into new clocks
Here's one really cool way to recycle an old Mac. Etsy seller pixelthis has turned the panels of retired Macs into clocks. pixelthis has already sold one clock made from the side of a G3. The seller currently has a clock made from the side panel of a G4 for $59USD and from the front cover of a G4 for $57USD. There are other unique clocks including those made from hard drives, circuitboards, bicycle wheels and old records. [Via Macgasm thanks to Josh for the tip!]
To AppleCare or not to AppleCare -- that is the question
The following is a re-enactment of the mysterious and sudden failure of Megan Lavey's MacBook. It was the evening of Tuesday, July 14, 2009. Megan Lavey heads out to the movies to watch the eagerly anticipated Harry Potter and Half-Blood Prince. But the excitement of the night was short lived. Upon her arrival home, Megan found her MacBook in an unconscious state. She tried several attempts to revive it: plugging it and unplugging it, removing and reinserting the battery, as well as performing an SMC reset. However, these attempts proved futile. In a last ditch effort, Megan made an emergency visit to her local Apple store to meet with a genius. They had both good news and bad news. The good news was that they identified the problem with her MacBook (the logic board) and could save it, but -- and here comes the bad news -- could cost up $750 to repair. What's worse, Megan didn't have AppleCare coverage. In a state of shock and sadness, Megan leaned on the shoulders of her fellow TUAWers, each of whom offered words of encouragement her: Chris Rawson: "My wife's mid-2007 MacBook is having the exact same issue right now. Luckily, it's covered by AppleCare, and going to the local repair place ASAP." Erica Sadun: "":( :( :("" Sang Tang: "Hey, this would make an interesting post. I'm going to write something on this." There are many Megans in the world, and each is faced with the difficult task of deciding whether or not a repair is worth its cost. It's also times like these that one regrets not purchasing AppleCare, for often times repair costs outweigh the cost of AppleCare. And this raises the question. Should you purchase AppleCare? Several months back, TUAW's Robert Palmer penned a piece on why he believes AppleCare is worth it. This post expands upon that and provides examples of when AppleCare is and isn't justified.
CBS, Comcast On Demand Online partnership faces off premium vs. free internet streaming; 17 cable channels jump onboard
After stocking up on premium networks with HBO and Starz, Comcast's On Demand Online project has added its first broadcast TV partner, CBS. One of the worries regarding TV Everywhere / On Demand Online has been what it would mean for free streaming portals like Hulu, with broadcasters potentially shifting content behind pay-tv walls to keep people from dropping cable and satellite TV subscriptions. CBS has been the notable Hulu holdout, although it has also pushed forward with free streaming on its website, including March Madness and even upping the resolution of its Flash video to 1080p. Further conflicting the issue? 17 more cable networks (A&E, AMC, BBC America, DIY Network, Fine Living Network, Food Network, Hallmark, HGTV, History, IFC, MGM Impact, Sundance Channel, WE tv, E!, The Style Network, G4 and FEARnet) have also announced plans to join the 5,000 subscriber trial. Just like the previous agreements, it appears customers should expect access during the trial to reflect a lot of what CBS and the others already offer through standard VOD but now with more placeshifting goodness. While media execs watch the bottom line, we're just hoping the stated CBS strategy of "open, non-exclusive distribution of our content in a consumer friendly way" (from the press release, available in full after the break) could push Hulu to add more HD, or at least unblock the PlayStation 3 & Windows Mobile.
