november-13
Latest
One year of Wrath
Rufus on Livejournal reminds us that one year ago as of November 13th, Wrath of the Lich King first came into our lives. That means it's been one full year since we had our launch events, since death knights first became free of the Lich King's control, and since we first stepped foot in Dalaran. It's the one year anniversary of our arrival at Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord, the addition of Inscription to the game, and the first fights in Strand of the Ancients and Wintergrasp. If you add in the pre-Wrath patch 3.0.2, you can add in achievements, barbershops, and a whole bunch of other changes. It's almost unbelievable how much has been added to the game in just the last year, though of course, considering that most of these things were actually announced way back at BlizzCon 2007, we've been living with them a little longer than that. And of course it's not over yet: we're currently standing on the doorstep of Icecrown Citadel, about to finish the fight over Arthas' soul that was started way back in Warcraft III, and there are rumblings under the earth of a whole new threat. Who knows what the World of Warcraft will look like a year from now?
Wrath manual hidden in latest WoW files
If you just can't wait to read the Wrath of the Lich King manual, Maeglin of Khadgar made an interesting discovery -- it's already on your computer. Inside your World of Warcraft folder, if you go to the Data folder, and then "enUS" and Documentation, you'll see a PDF file called Manual_WLK. It's the Wrath manual in black and white -- there are good writeups in there (spoiler-free, as far as I could tell) on the story so far and Northrend, and some cool concept art for weapons and other sights of the next expansion. The credits are in there, too, and make sure to go to the very end to read all the thanks from Blizzard -- some of them are pretty funny.This likely isn't the final manual -- there's something in the Death Knight description that still says runes can be customized, and while we heard that earlier in development, it's since been removed from the class. And it's in black and white, while we'd expect the full manual to have color when it's finally printed. But it's a cool find, and something to tide you over until you can get the real thing on release day (which, as you can see from our countdown, is growing ever closer).Thanks, Wes R.!
Breakfast topic: Vacation to Northrend
Hooray! After months of speculation, we finally have a release date for Wrath of the Lich King. The World (of Warcraft) will soon be chock full of Death Knights and Inscriptionists. There are so many things to look forward to. I can't decide which character to level first. I'll have some time. As promised, I put in my Paid Time Off request for a few days after the release. I'm very surprised at Thursday release date, but I'm not complaining. I'm taking the twelfth through the sixteenth of November off work. I beat the release-request rush at work, so my time is approved. See you in Northrend. Are you rearranging your schedule for the coming of Wrath?
Wrath Pre-orders on Blizzard site
As much as some Blizzard reps might have wanted to play coy on the official forums, the official World of Warcraft site leaked a link to Pre-order Wrath of the Lich King which will -- according to the page -- indeed come out on November 13, 2008. So while there has mysteriously been no big announcement on the Blizzard websites, this Pre-order page pretty much confirms what Wowhead and Thottbot unveiled earlier today.Participating retailers include Amazon, Best Buy, Circuit City, and GameStop. Interestingly enough, all the official links except for Best Buy peg the official release at November 3, a date leaked out in earlier reports. GameStop words it as "ships in 11/03/08" which could mean that the games will reach retailers over a week before the official release date. [EDIT: Or yeah, it could be that they haven't updated their sites yet. Good morning!] The details include both normal and Collector's Edition versions of the game. The official Blizzard site has, as of this writing, now been updated to reflect the official release date with a splash page.[UPDATE: GameStop has revised their release date to match the announced date of 11/13/08]
DS releases for the week of November 13th
Big week for handheld gaming! As we creep closer to the end of the year, release dates are just more and more packed with must-have titles. If this keeps up, we may have to consider undertaking a life of crime in order to afford everything we want. What are you picking up this week, and how much ramen are you gonna munch to compensate?DS releases: Asphalt: Urban GT 2 Bionicle Heroes Bomberman Land: Touch! Brain Boost: Beta Wave Brain Boost: Gamma Wave Charlotte's Web Digimon World DS Eragon Final Fantasy III Gunpey Happy Feet Monster Bomber Rayman Raving Rabbids Spider-Man: Battle for New York Tamagotchi Connection: Corner Shop 2 Tomb Raider: Legend Totally Spies! 2: Undercover Yoshi's Island 2 GBA releases: Bionicle Heroes Charlotte's Web Eragon F-24: Stealth Fighter Happy Feet March of the Penguins Polarium Advanced Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis Spider-Man: Battle for New York Super Robot Taisen 2 Tomb Raider: Legend Tonka on the Job Totally Spies! 2: Undercover Yggdra Union And don't forget (like you were going to!) -- next week is the first of the global launch dates for the Wii! Then we'll really be awash in Nintendo goodness. As for this week's games, as ever, supplies are subject to manufacturer delivery.[Big ups to whoever the games in the picture belong to!]
