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Lumigon announces unveiling party for first smartphone, invites everyone on Facebook
Yes, you're invited too. Lumigon wowed us with some simple, sophisticated looking handset renders way back in February, the S1 and the T1, promising things like HDMI output and Android 2.1 -- wild things back then. Just five months on and those features sound a little more pedestrian, so we're wondering how it will stack up when the T1 is finally unveiled in the flesh in another three months, on October 20. It'll be a wild night when the Scandinavian Lumigon crew lets loose its keyboard-free smartphone upon the denizens of Copenhagen. Will any Dane be safe? [Thanks, Jakob]
Reminder: It came from the Blog server maintenance party tonight
Is your server down today? Join us tonight for the Server Maintenance Party! We will be stealing the fires in the Alliance capitals for Midsummer Fire Festival. This will be an all-levels event, so don't worry if you don't have a character already in <It came from the Blog>. Here are the particulars: When: Tuesday, June 29 at 10:15 p.m. EDT (7:15 p.m. PDT, 8:15 p.m. realm time) Where: Meet at Splintertree Post in Ashenvale on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H) Who: Your highest Horde character, even if that means level 1 What: Hopefully, a Thief's Reward hat for all How: Ask Robinator or any <It came from the Blog> guildie to join the guild; ranks of Lurker or higher can invite. Get to Splintertree Post by 10:15 p.m. so you will be ready to leave right at 10:30 p.m. Summons are for sissies, so log on early to make sure you're there on time. Expect to die many deaths. Expect to not be rezzed. Expect to pick up your bod and catch up. Expect to have to run a lot. Expect it all to be fun anyway. If you are unable to make it, but would like to watch it streaming and listen to me be chatty, we've embedded the stream along with the chat after the break. If you will be joining us, there are also tips after the break and you may want to listen to at least the audio stream.
Breakfast Topic: We get bored
Sometimes everyone on my server simultaneously gets bored, or antsy or just a little bit more wired then normal, and things happen like the screenshot pictured above -- that's about half of the mammoth train that was walking slowly around the perimeter of Dalaran. Why was it formed? Where was it going? No idea, but as I watched them slowly shuffle by, I obligingly hopped on my Black War Mammoth and joined the train. Because it was late, I'd just finished a solid run of ICC-25, and it was something to do while I chatted with guild members. This sort of thing happens just before the raids, too. One guild member will pull out a D.I.S.C.O. ball, another will start throwing around Party G.R.E.N.A.D.E.s. Before you know it, the dank corridor that leads into the depths of Icecrown Citadel has suddenly been turned into a happening place to be, the ground littered with "Spectral Tiger" mounts, Ogre Pinatas and kettles of Goblin Gumbo. Sometimes Archmage Vargoth puts in an appearance. He can't help it; there are usually four or five flaming draenei dancers congregated around a Brazier of Dancing Flames, and the girls just drive him crazy. Does stuff like this happen on your server? Spontaneous dance parties, mammoth trains, stacks of flying mounts hovering above the Dalaran well? What happens when your server gets bored? Trade chat aside, mind you -- we all know how /2 gets when people are feeling feisty.
You're invited to Disney Guilty Party on July 27
Click to solve "The Case of What's in the Gallery"Wideload Games' "Clue meets Guess Who meets adventure game" for Wii, Disney Guilty Party, will be available for investigation (and also purchase) in North America on July 27. The game lets up to four players use their Wiimotes as magnifying glasses, fingerprint kits and other detective tools as they rush to solve crimes orchestrated by the diabolical "Mr. Valentine." Along the way, players must gather clues about the identity of the culprit in each particular case, through investigation and investigation-themed minigames. While you wait for the July release, feel free to take a magnifying glass into our gallery and see what can be deduced from the new screenshots. %Gallery-86428%
Remedy celebrates completed Alan Wake with new trailer, party
Here's something, at one point, we thought we'd never write: Alan Wake has passed Microsoft certification and is on track to release May 18. The news comes via Alan Wake's community forums, where community manager Pete Papadopoulos posted some pictures of the developers celebrating and opening up a bottle of champagne they bought during development, specifically for this occasion. Who knew they even made champagne back then? Jesting aside, there's some exciting new footage of Alan Wake -- including a rundown of its setting and combat -- just after the break. Source - Remedy celebrates Alan Wake passing certification Source - "Building the Thriller" trailer
The Mog Log: Answers (and disclaimers)
In this edition of the Mog Log, every question you have ever had will be answered completely accurately. (Disclaimer: these questions must pertain to either Final Fantasy XI or Final Fantasy XIV. And they must have been asked via e-mail or comments. And it must be noted that "I don't know" is an accurate answer to a question. Also, this aside is now longer then the introductory sentence.) Aren't you excited as possible? I know I am. We'll start off with a question from Dormer: "Why aren't we getting more information from the beta?" We're not sure, but we can certainly speculate. The most logical reason is that the testing is closer to an alpha than anything and they're not letting people in that they can't trust implicitly. Square-Enix has a pretty good track record at keeping things quiet when they want to, and they're likely making sure that nothing leaks out from this phase. How much of an NDA further phases of Final Fantasy XIV's testing will have is a mystery. But there's another reason for the possible dearth of information. (Which we've intentionally put behind the cut to inspire you to keep reading.)
Seen@GDC: Some weird things happened at Harmonix's Rock Band event
You've already seen the (arguably) most newsworthy video we filmed during Wednesday's Rock Band Bar Night event hosted by Harmonix at GDC. However, our Flip Cam captured a few other magic moments which we'd be remiss if we kept to ourselves. They're not the most news-y videos we've ever posted on our own site, though one of them does feature a preview of the upcoming Lady Gaga DLC. That's gotta be worth something, right? Watch the whole sideshow after the jump.
Final Fantasy XIII launch party equips +10 awkwardness
What do Cerny Games' Mark Cerny, Gas Powered Games' Chris Taylor, Microsoft's Corrinne Yu, and Obsidian's Feargus Urquhart have in common, besides being game developers? Absolutely nothing. Yet, Square Enix managed to sit them down for an hour long roundtable discussion to talk about one thing: how awesome Final Fantasy (and Final Fantasy VII, in particular) is. To say it was awkward is a tremendous understatement. Certainly, there's much cause for celebration. With the game first announced nearly four years ago, the impending release of Final Fantasy XIII feels like a much needed breath of relief. It was Square Enix's night to celebrate its work, and with a red carpet entrance for key producers and voice actors it carried an aura appropriate for the return of the long-awaited flagship franchise. With some glowing reviews, this launch party could have rested solely on the game's merits. A cheerful (and perhaps slightly mistranslated) speech from Square Enix president Yoichi Wada set the right tone for the evening, with Wada wearing a Fal'cie tattoo on his hand calling the audience to join him in a quest to save the world; however, the evening took a quick turn for the bizarre. A visually breathtaking 3D trailer for Final Fantasy XIII was marred by the host's obnoxious desire to watch it a second time in quick succession. The roundtable discussion that followed highlighted the franchise's accomplishments, twisting them into an overview of these developers' shortcomings. There was an almost defeated attitude with the panel, many admitting their inability to match the sheer production values of a Square Enix joint. The evening escalated to quite possibly one of the most awkward toasts we've ever encountered. A Microsoft spokesperson took the stage, congratulating Square Enix on bringing Final Fantasy XIII to Xbox 360. Shortly thereafter, a Sony spokesperson also took the stage, emphasizing how Final Fantasy is a PlayStation franchise, and how XIII is best on PS3, on a single Blu-ray disc -- the way it was meant to be played. The audience was abuzz like a Joystiq comments thread, and champagne was had by all. Congratulations on releasing Final Fantasy XIII, Square Enix! %Gallery-87750%
Hands-on: Disney Guilty Party
On my list of games I expected to see from Stubbs the Zombie dev Wideload Games, "multiplayer mystery game" ... well, wasn't on my list. But I have to say that I was excited by what I saw (and played) of Disney Guilty Party during the Nintendo Media Summit. It was funny, clever and, simply, different. Though it will support four-player cooperative (and even competitive) mystery-solving (think: Clue meets Zack & Wiki), the session I participated in was a two-player affair. From levels that include a train, mansion, aquarium, and other settings, I ended up playing the gumshoe character on a cruise ship that was missing its wheel and anchor. Along with my partner in crime ... solving, I came pretty close to solving the whodunnit (you need to find evidence as to the perp's hair length, sex, shape, and height, before accusing anyone) as I used my allotted moves and turns to investigate the dollhouse-like cut-away of the ship. Special cards came into play (the over-arching story's villain might, for example, lock off a room -- there's a card that counters that) as did some ... err, unique "interrogation" mini-games, including "staring" into a suspects eyes, paying a bribe and tickling the truth out of an NPC using the Wiimote. The writing's sharp and funny, the classic adventure game underpinnings are noticeable, and I'm eager to play more. %Gallery-86428%
SOE is sending you a streaming video of love
The holiday of love is rapidly approaching, and SOE is doing something a little different this year. In addition to your standard Valentine's Day events, like EverQuest II's Erollisi Day, they're also putting together a streaming video Valentine's Day party. The party will commence on Friday, February 12th, at 1 PM PT (4 PM ET) on SOE's Ustream channel. The community team will be gathered to make paper hearts and answer your questions live in the Ustream chat room while they deliver player submitted Valentine's Day greetings and announcements. SOE developers will also be dropping by the party to talk with players, so you never know what will happen! Today, however, is the last day to submit your own personal greetings to the party! The full instructions are available at the official announcement on any of the SOE sites, but you can be lazy and click this link to go straight to them on the EverQuest II site.
Spy with the best: Join Massively for Global Agenda's launch! [Updated]
Readers, we're contacting you through an encrypted channel right now to deliver some very important information. Agent Schuster and Agent Brennan will be on deck for the launch of Global Agenda, ready to fight the Commonwealth at your side. Come Monday, log into Global Agenda and team up with Sera and Shawn to fight the good fight in both PvP and PvE strike teams. The dossier is still sealed on this mission, but keep an eye on this post and the encrypted T-Feed (@massively on Twitter) for the full information on how to link up with Apoc and Archangel on the day of the launch. We'll announce our play times and character names come Monday by updating this post, so just place a bookmark here and get your game all patched up. Take advantage of the early start while you're at it and get your characters leveled up for launch. This way our enemies will never know what hit them.
More options for party communication
Our buddy Rufus from the WoW LJ brings word of a sneaky change in the recent patch: raid warnings (those warnings that pop up in the middle of your screen, created by typing "/rw" while leading a raid) no longer work in parties. Apparently you have to be in a raid to actually toss off a warning. Of course, that could have happened before this patch, but at any rate, it's in the game now. No more /rw in party chat. Not only is it a bummer because some people used to use it constantly to keep party members in line, but this also means that there's one less means of communication between all of these random parties forming out there on the realms. Sure, in a perfect world, everyone would know the fights and chat would be enough to make sure everyone was on the same page (or depending of your vision of a perfect world, everyone actually uses the in-game voice chat -- a quick survey of our staff here presumes that it works in cross-realm PuGs, but given that I've never actually seen it used on the live realms by anyone, who knows?), but we're hardly running instances in a perfect world. Sometimes chat is not the best way to get a complicated boss fight organized and ready.
Anti-Aliased: I, suck
So my last column was one heck of a surprising column. Anti-Aliased got steamrolled with your opinions, thanks to the linking from N4G, Kotaku, Reddit, WoW.com, and Joystiq and everyone spreading the word and telling their friends. Without a doubt, that was the most productive column I've written in a long time, and while some people may have written it off as a rant, the more important thing is that it started some great discussion amongst the community. Everyone who gave their view on things, from the people who agreed to the people who wish I would crawl into a ditch and die, thanks for giving your view! So this week when I went out with a few friends to get a drink, one of them mentioned Darkfall. Of course when an MMO comes up in conversation, all of my friends turn and give me this long, dead stare. I sighed and recounted my time in Darkfall, but as I thought of it, I began to notice something. I really sucked at Darkfall. Not just kind of sucked -- really sucked. The combat in that wasn't my thing, as I never really deal with pressure in PvP when something big is on the light. FPS games where I go to my save point when I die is one thing, but dying and losing everything? That's something different. I think I killed like 3 people in my entire month there. Although, when it came to crafting, I was a arrow machine. But that got me thinking about sucking in general and how we as a community aren't very supportive when it comes to players who may not be the best at the games they play.
Dungeon Finder reactions from players
The long-awaited Dungeon Finder is finally out on the servers, and people have had a few days with it now, so let's jump in and gauge some early reactions. Overall, it seems to be a big hit -- tanks and healers are jumping into groups right away, and while we've heard of longer waits for DPS, it doesn't seem bad at all. While of course the initial flood of people brought instance servers down (I'd expect to see the same thing happen during peak time this weekend), everything seems to be working well since then: disenchanters are correctly dropping items out, loot is getting distributed correctly, and groups are doing what they were always supposed to do: rake in the badges and rewards for players. Hots and Dots actually has a long take on the Dungeon Finder, including "15 Things You Should Know," like that tanks and healers are still as important as ever (if you sign up for DPS and another role, you likely won't be doing DPS), and that we're finding out very quickly just how skilled or knowledgeable people really are ("the Party Leader will be forced to confess midway [through] that they actually know nothing about the instance").
It came from the Blog: Battleground Bonanza
I love Battlegrounds. I think they all have their positives, though my favorite is still Alterac Valley. So I've been wanting to hold an It came from the Blog BG event for a while and I've decided it's time... Time for the first Battleground Bonanza! Here are the details: When: Wednesday, December 2, 11:00pm EST (8:00pm PST, 9:00pm Server time) Where: The Hall of the Brave (where the Battlemasters are), Orgrimmar, Zangarmarsh U.S. Who: Any level 10 or above Horde character. How: Ask any It came from the Blog Lurker or Robinella for a guild invite. What: Battleground premades Though any Battleground level character is invited, I will be playing on Robinella, who is a level 60 Death Knight and will therefore be playing in the 60 to 69 range BGs. We will be forming groups and hitting as many level/group-size appropriate BGs as we can for an hour or so. If you can't make it to the Hall of the Brave in time for the event, you will miss out on the first screenshot, but will still be able to participate. If you are unfamiliar with Battleground play, please do some homework so that it will be more fun for both you and your teammates. More details are after the break.
Reminder: It came from the Blog Pilgrim Party tonight
You are cordially invited to party like a Pilgrim tonight with It came from the Blog! Here are the details: When: 11pm EST (8pm PST, 9pm Server time) Wednesday, November 25th Where: Meet at the Ruins of Lordaeron (Undercity) on Zangarmarsh (U.S.) Who: Any Horde character of any level. No mounts required. How: Ask Robinator, Robinella, Robiness or any It came from the Blog Lurker or above for an invite to the guild. What: We will be gaining some Pilgrim's Bounty Achievements: Food Fight!, Sharing is Caring and Pilgrim's Paunch. Robinator will be providing ports to each city (as long as I don't just port myself like I did the other night), so there will be no need for mounts or flightpaths. We may have a few WoW.com bloggers join us for the fun and we also may (no guarantees) give out some loot codes. Regardless, we should have a good time filling up the tables and throwing food at each other while spamming up guildchat with Achievements. If you have any questions about our guild, please see our FAQ. Hope to see you there!
Breakfast Topic: What do you do when your server is down?
The players on the Emberstorm and Whirlwind battlegroups have had a rough week. A massive power outage, huge network issues and other problems have forced them away from their virtual homes to find refuge elsewhere. Some have joined the It came from the Blog guild on Zangarmarsh, where we have had two impromptu server outage parties. The picture above is from Tuesday night's shindig. Others have commented in the outage posts that they have formed level 1 raids on other servers. And of course there are other games to play. Personally, if both Zangarmarsh and my main server are down, I figure it's time to start watching what's on the DVR and knitting. What do you do when your server is down?
It Came from the Blog server outage party
When Emberstorm and Whirlwind battlegroups went down due to a massive power outage and nastiness resulting from it, we invited displaced players to join us in our It came from the Blog guild on Zangarmarsh. And they did. For the most part, it was a guildchat party, but many of us gathered for a picture outside of Silvermoon to commemorate the occasion. I also offered ports to Shattrath so people could set their hearthstones. I'm not used to giving ports, however, so I accidentally ported just myself on one occasion. Oops. Joining us for the party were Adam Holisky, Michael Sacco, Matt Low and Kelly Aarons. We all had a great time hanging out together and getting some cooking done. Just because we had this impromptu get together doesn't mean we're still not going to Party like Pilgrims on Wednesday night, however. Everyone is invited, so come join us at 11pm EST on Zangarmarsh, Wednesday night for some Pilgrim's Bounty fun.
Breakfast Topic: How do you feel about the new LFG system?
The LFG system has been completely revamped. Details were released the other day. It's supposed to be coming some time in patch 3.3. You won't have to worry about not finding a tank or a healer as the LFG interface is supposed to draw from a pool of various servers. The idea of pulling players from other servers seems like a double edged sword. Sure you might be able to run into more people and more opportunities, but what happens if you run across a ninja or an unsavory player? I suppose it's reassuring to know that they're on a different server than you are. But here's some other changes: Players can join as individuals, as a full group, or a partial group to look for additional party members. Groups using this tool will be able to teleport directly to the selected instance. Upon leaving the instance, players will be returned to their original location. If any party member needs to temporarily leave the instance for reagents or repairs, they will have the option to teleport back to the instance. Personally I like the idea of not having to fly all the way down to the Utgarde or Nexus instances. That's going to cut down on travel time for sure. Hopefully the players we'll be partying with will already be fully repaired and have enough reagents to last the run. It's nice to know that extra convenience has been added for the days where we forget. Are you looking forward to these new changes? 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 the Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.
Tekken 6 launch tournament promises to 'be hype'
If you're a fighting game enthusiast living in Southern California -- or a really big fighting game enthusiast living in Northern California -- you might want to check out the Tekken 6 launch party that's being hosted by a number of local fighting game community sites in Hawthorne, CA. Attendees who shell out for the $10 entry fee will have the chance to play the brawler on comically large screens, win some swag (such as the drool-inducing wireless fightstick bundle) and schmooze with some Namco Bandai developers. You can be sure that we'll be in attendance -- we're going with the hopes of being able to shake the hand of the person responsible for the panda-booting screenshot above. That thing has brought so much joy into our lives, and we'd like to personally thank its progenitor. %Gallery-66507%
