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LG Versa Gamepad hands-on
We've spent a week now fiddling with the LG Versa game pad module. How does the phone's first premium attachment fare? Does it amp up the gaming cred or join the ranks of ultimately forgettable peripherals? Unfortunately, we're inclined to think it falls in the latter category. Read on for full impressions.
New DDO screens highlight Module 9's Shavarath
The free Module 9 update is just around the corner for Dungeons and Dragons Online, at least relatively speaking. But since we know that waiting for a big shiny new patch can be daunting at best, here are some screens of the forthcoming Shavarath to help tide you over until that fateful patch day. Module 9 is piling on a number of new features, including a raise for the level cap, chat improvements, new feats and abilities, capstone enhancements, and we're assuming some other yet-to-be announced goodies.For a game that's pushing past three years, Dungeons and Dragons Online is looking quite good. It probably helps that Module 9 is moving DX10 support out of beta and into officially official status. That's twice as official as it was before, for anyone keeping score.As great as these screenshots are, we really think Turbine needs to do their hard work some justice and put out a new trailer showcasing all the new improvements with an emphasis on the animations. It's all the rage nowadays, Turbine!%Gallery-49608%
Winterblink: asset control and consolidation in EVE Online
Warp Drive Active podcaster Winterblink is a man who's got everything, apparently. And too much of it, scattered throughout his hangars in New Eden. It's a common problem in EVE Online, particularly for players who roam a lot throughout the galaxy. Mission runners, ratters, and adherents of most any trade or livelihood in the game accumulate a lot of random assets, individually of low worth but which can hold substantial value when seen as a whole. Unfortunately, what Winterblink describes in his blog gets even worse when a player uses containers to organize their possessions by category across multiple stations. The contents of those containers cannot be viewed remotely; one has to be docked in that particular station to see what's inside. Winterblink decided he couldn't handle the clutter anymore and shared the most efficient way he's found to deal with it all, step-by-step. He also had a good idea about having a container that only has the modules for his preferred ship fittings. Slowboating all over New Eden to consolidate his assets worked out for Winterblink. But this writer found that the negligible value of his junk and the time lost consolidating it wouldn't be worth the effort, and opted to ruthlessly destroy a fair amount of it, rather than collect and reprocess or resell the odds and ends. The slash-and-burn approach works for Tech I modules, but once ships and Tech II of anything enter into the picture, Winterblink's way is best. Especially in that he opted to reprocess the materials rather than trying to sell them all on the market.
Player vs. Everything: The quirks of D&D Online
From the first time I stepped into Turbine's Dungeons and Dragons Online: Stormreach, I was amazed by how well it managed to capture the dungeon crawling feel of the franchise that I knew, loved, and grew up with. With its fast-paced, pulse-pounding, and thoroughly satisfying combat, clever use of hidden doors and traps, and resource management mini-game of health, spells, and abilities, D&D Online provides a unique gameplay experience that no other MMOG can provide right now. One only has to listen to the vehement and impassioned discussion of the hardcore fans, found in any pick-up dungeon group, to realize that Turbine has something special here---something that World of Warcraft and Warhammer Online, EverQuest and Age of Conan, or even EVE Online simply can't offer.However, is being unique and interesting enough to justify the price? On a recent Massively podcast, I mentioned that I've always felt like DDO wasn't worth the monthly fee, despite how much I love the game. The standard $15 per month pricing model is a one-size-fits-all label that looks a little too bulky on the city of Stormreach, for a number of reasons. Today I'm going to examine some of the reasons why a game which I find so interesting, exciting, and fun can't manage to crack my wallet open, and what I think Turbine could do to push the game a little further into the competitive territory of its gaming peers.
Debunking TomTom's iPhone GPS module
If you've been drooling over the little TomTom add-on for the iPhone we nabbed a "photo" of the other day, you can probably wipe the spittle off your chin. It looks like the image makes a fatal flaw in borrowing its barcode from a fairly well-known iPod fake (pictured above). Additionally, in researching our tipster, we've discovered he's a graphic designer with a penchant for Apple fakes -- not exactly a confidence builder. So it appears we've got more rumor shot down -- though we hope TomTom and Jobs are paying attention, because it's painfully obvious that the people want GPS on this thing, and they want it now.[Thanks, thecreativ1]
Quicksilver del.icio.us plugin updated
For all the Quicksilver users out there, the del.icio.us plugin has been updated for (what I assume is) the recent change in their API that seems to have afflicted every app that has anything to do with access to the social bookmarking service. As one might guess, the del.icio.us plugin simply allows access to one's del.icio.us bookmarks from directly within Quicksilver, just like browsing the bookmarks of any local browsers. The documentation page I link to says the plugin isn't compatible with Intel-based Macs yet, but I'm pretty sure that's outdated, as it appeared in my MacBook Pro's plugin list quite a while ago and has made my life all the better since.
