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Bronze Kettle auctions character art for Child's Play
It's that time of year again-- the time of gamer giving, and the good folks over at The Bronze Kettle are running a terrific event for Child's Play that is sure to bring in some great cash for the annual Penny Arcade sponsored charity. They're auctioning off a custom Starprints illustration, charm, and avatar of the World of Warcraft character of your choice. Starprints actually sent us one of their pieces for our recent fan art contest, and while they didn't win, they are definitely cute little charms, and a completely original piece of art for your character.As of this writing, the highest bid is only about $31, but come on, people! This is for charity! If you have any interest in getting your character immortalized in a piece of art, get out those wallets and offer some cash. Not only are you picking up an illustration, charm, and a custom avatar, but you're supporting a great cause, too-- 100% of the sale price goes straight to the charity, which supports hospitals around the country with videogames and other needed items for children.And stay tuned to the entire Joystiq network for more Child's Play related giving this year
Readers pick best webcomic: domestic bliss
Despite commenters' lamentations over the purported juvenile innuendo, readers en masse voted 2P Start's "Domestic Bliss" as the top webcomic for the week. If the art seems atypical for Ray and Tim's previous work this strip was drawn by Ray's friend Richard Aguirre.Second and third place go to Penny Arcade and Ctrl+Alt+Del, respectively. Thanks to everyone who voted, and be sure to let us know of any game-related webcomic you stumble upon this week!
Penny Arcade's take on Assassin's Creed DS
It's difficult to imagine what steps Ubisoft will take to adapt Assassin's Creed for the Nintendo DS, what with the console game's "next-gen" graphics and mature themes, but the theorists at Penny Arcade took a stab at predicting its presentation, holding up a bloody, lacerated comic to demonstrate their prophecy.We wouldn't be too upset with their proposed game, a marriage between Assassin's Creed and Animal Crossing. Not every console title can make as successful a transition to handhelds like The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword. Compared to some of the other multiplatform titles that've appeared on the DS -- Peter Jackson's King Kong and TMNT, for example -- the game sounds like a treat. We would be lucky if Assassin's Creed DS turns out to be half as good as this infantalized Assassin's Crossing concept.See also: DS Daily: Card-based RPG or minigame collection?
Fifth annual Child's Play charity drive begins
Child's Play organizers have announced that the annual charity drive is now underway. The drive was first launched some five years ago by Penny Arcade masterminds Gabe and Tycho as a fundraiser for the Seattle Children's Hospital, and has since grown to become a global hub of good will for those in need, while simultaneously demonstrating that gamers by and large are not the anti-social jerkwads the media would make them out to be. Those interested in contributing to the drive, which now includes hospitals in more than 25 states and five countries, can easily donate items though purchases made via Amazon, and officials note that the tax deductible gifts will be sent directly to those hospitals in need. In addition, the annual Child's Play Fundraider Dinner is scheduled to take place on December 11 at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in Seattle, and will as always include both a silent and live auction, with all proceeds going towards the charity.
Penny Arcade Expo 2008 dated, returns Aug 29-31
Is that two month old PAX07 t-shirt started to look slightly worn or wrinkled? (If so, may we recommend occasionally wearing other clothing.) Save the date and start booking your flight for Seattle, as the dates for the 5th annual Penny Arcade Expo have been unveiled: August 29 through 31, 2008.This year's event drew in approximately 37,000 attendees into the Washington State Convention and Trade Center. According to the press release (PDF file), "attendance for the 2008 event is expected to reach forty-seven million bajillion people." A venue for the 2008 expo was not specified; exhibitor packets are now available and attendee registration opens in January. Okay, folks, you can now officially start placing your bets on what will be next year's Omegathon.
Penny Arcade takes on Ratchet and Clank
Did you catch today's Penny Arcade strip? Well, hope you did -- it's a fun one, just for Ratchet & Clank fans. Check it out.Of course, as is usual for the Penny Arcade duo, they have a blog entry detailing their experiences with the game. "The new Ratchet & Clank is a marvel, further proof that Insomniac is the surest thing that platform has going for it. You'll travel to lush, hitch-free worlds where the brutal load times found in other Playstation titles are nowhere to be found. It's something everyone with the system will be playing, and it's executed at a level that should generate jealousy in the non-owner."We'd have to agree. Check out PS3 Fanboy's review of the game next Tuesday (right before it "officially" ships to stores!).
Readers pick best webcomic: a forbidden love
He doesn't know why, but he chases it anyways. Any questions can be referred to Slackerz, winners (or is it winnerz?) of this week's webcomic wrapup.Second place goes to Penny Arcade (Awesome. Slide. Evar.) while third place is a near tie between Dueling Analogs and Hijinks Ensue. Thanks to everyone who voted and be sure to let us know of any game-related webcomic you stumble upon this week!
Raph Koster's Penny Arcade Construction MMO
I'm tempted to append "Electric Boogaloo" to the end of that title. Regardless, Wednesday's Penny Arcade featured a guest post by Raph Koster, wherein he talks about a challenge that Tycho set up for him to solve: Create a construction-based MMO. So, Raph gets to it, and damned if it doesn't sound intriguing and layered! It's a massive doc, at least relatively massive, considering Tycho originally asked for a mere 500 words from Raph. I won't rehash the details here; suffice to say this ties into Raph's recent announcement of his Metaplace project, in which Joe Average can create the virtual space of his dreams. For those of you a-hankerin' to exercise your creativity, Raph has the design doc for you!
Readers pick best webcomic: Splitsville
How dare you, Rooster Teeth, promote same-sex parental separation. Don't you see that this poor, costumed kid is hiding his anguish behind that orange visor?... oh, wait, this is an allegory for the Bungie / Microsoft split? Nevermind, false alarm. Kudos on winning this week's webcomic wrapup. Second place went to God Mode Online while Penny Arcade and Dueling Analogs duked it out for third. Thanks to everyone who voted, and be sure to let us know of any game-related webcomics you stumble upon this week?
Penny Arcade on Bloggergate
Today's Penny Arcade comic covers a subject that is near and dear to us: the poor Nintendo employee who was fired for inappropriate statements made on her blog. Even though her blog was really mean to her coworkers, we feel a certain solidarity as Nintendo bloggers. Whether or not she deserved dismissal for statements made while off-duty is a little bit more of a complex issue than we want to get into right now (though we lean heavily toward "no"), but we have no problem pointing you at a funny comic so you can laugh.Luckily for us, whenever we're mean on our blog, it's towards the Imagine games and not people. If Imagine Babyz were our boss, well, we'd probably be in jail by now.
Voicing concerns over VOIP
Some people on the forums are voicing concerns over the upcoming VOIP feature being added in Patch 2.2. For example, player Farnsworth is afraid that all he is going to hear is kids playing music. CM Drysc's response is /right click/ignoreEnjoy the silence.There are basic features that will be built in to the Integrated Voice feature such as being able to ignore individual players' voices. But the most important thing to remember is that the feature is optional. Just as the quality of online play varies with the people with whom you are playing, so does the quality of online voice vary with the people to whom you choose to listen. We all hope for pleasant voices from informed minds, but what we usually get ranges from the comedic to the downright scary, as illustrated here.Another forum thread (unfortunately, now deleted) suggested that no one was going to use integrated voice and that it was a waste of development resources. A different player asked "What do you think Blizzard is made up of? One guy named Bill Izzard who has to do everything?" Drysc responded withBill's a nice guy, but you're right, we also have Bly Zizzard. So, yeah, two people who do everything. But really I don't think it's important to justify our development pipelines, or explain that a programmer is different from an artist, or UI designer, or web designer. If you don't want to use the voice chat feature you'll be able to disable it.
Promotional Consideration: Come As You Are
Promotional Consideration is a weekly feature about the Nintendo DS advertisements you usually flip past, change the channel on, or just tune out.If you missed our spotlight on Leo Burnett's "Communion Day" ad last Sunday, make sure to give it a glance. Even if you've already skimmed through our words on the award-winning piece, we've updated our summation with some insight from art director Rosemary Collini Bosso.This weekend's installment of Promotional Consideration takes a critical eye to an unconvincing ad that might actually drive away consumers. Read on for more details.
Breakfast Topic: Patch 2.U
Another patch has gone up on the PTR, bringing new visions of a possible future for World of Warcraft players. We've read a lot of patch notes in our time, agonized over what nerfs might be coming to our class, and waited with great anticipation new features and dungeons. Once we even saw how to write patch notes of our own! So now, imagine if you will, that you have the golden opportunity to design a future WoW patch, creatively entitled "Patch 2.U." You are now the temporary chief of the Blizzard Development team. You sit in your throne room and dictate what the contents of the next patch will be!... But only for about 5 minutes -- then you have to step down from your throne and put the chief's hat on the next person in line. Then that person gets to dictate the patch notes, making any changes they see fit.Let's say you can choose 5 items for your own personal patch notes here; what changes or new features would be most important to you? If you see any changes from commenters above you which you absolutely can't abide, feel free to change them back. This will probably give us an example of the absolute chaos this game would be if players were actually in charge, but it could be pretty interesting. Be sure to check out the "Guide to Writing Fake Patch Notes," and then... patch away![Patch note funnies by Penny Arcade!]
Harry Potter and the Order of the Dweebs
Not a day passes without some poor sap's waggling image being posted on Flickr or YouTube, their awkwardness immortalized for the world to see. Today's Penny Arcade comic is a cautionary tale for all the gamers out there who lose themselves in the Wii's heightened brand of immersion, flapping their hands and dressing in costume for that authentic experience. With Harry Potter mania being at an all time high -- several video games, a new movie, and the final book all within a few weeks' reach -- we're at our most vulnerable. Guarding ourselves against these embarrassing exposures should be priority one. Remember that the next time you start riding your mother's broom during a mock Quidditch match and notice a red light blinking in one of the room's air vents.
The absolute worst class duo
Our reader Josh wrote to us with an common and practical question, saying that he said that he and his girlfriend are looking forward to starting two new alts together and they would like to know what the best classes would be for leveling exclusively together, with no solo play in between. He said, and I quote: "what would the greatest, most face melting/ass kicking/uber pwnage duo in WoW look like?"Now, fortunately for Josh and his girlfriend, we've actually been asked this question before, and anyways this sort of topic comes up lots and lots and lots of times in one way or another. I'm happy to refer them, and all interested parties of two, back to those posts with comments from our insightful readers. Of course if you feel something has changed since those topics last came up and there's a new best duo in the game, feel free to let us know here!But in order to give this post some kind of interesting spin, how about we advice them what not to do! What would be the absolute worst class combination imaginable for two people to level with? It's not as easy as you think -- As our class encouragement breakfast topics have shown so far, each of the classes has their own form of face melting, ass-kicking uber pwnage, and they all seem to have abilities that complement each other, no matter who they're paired with. Still... there has to be a less-than-optimal combination in there somewhere, right?Ideologically, you'd think that paladins and warlocks just would not mix at all, but no, that's not true! Actually they work great together. From my own experience, I remember practicing as a 2vs2 arena team with a mage friend, who is an excellent player, but we still didn't do very well at all. I know it could be just because I may be a terrible druid, or my gear may not be good enough, but it's actually the only time in this game that I've ever paired up with a friend only to feel that maybe our class abilities didn't complement each other well. I thought that if I could level my rogue to join her we might be a lot more successful, but my friend thought that I just needed more practice. Maybe there is no worst class duo! What's your experience?[Check out the girlfriend's answer in the last panel of this great Penny Arcade comic above, and take it as a warning not to choose for your duo a new class that you like toooooo much, or else you might not be able to resist soloing with it when you have free time and your partner doesn't!]
Enter to win a signed WoW TCG playmat from WoW Insider
The other weekend, I went out to Schaumberg, IL to meet up with the guys from Upper Deck at the WoW TCG Darkmoon Faire. And not only did I walk away with a couple of interviews and a lot of pictures, they also hooked me up with these two rare playmats, which we're giving away to two lucky readers!The one on top was given away to everyone who participated in the main tournament at the Darkmoon Faire events, and the one on the bottom features art by none other than Gabe of Penny Arcade. Oh, and you can't see it in the picture, but both mats are signed by none other than Mike Hummel, head of Upper Deck's R&D, and co-creator of the WoW TCG.To enter, just leave a comment (one comment and only one comment) on this post right here. As usual, the contest is only open to US residents age 13 and up (rest of the official rules here). Tomorrow morning at 11am EST, I'll close the comments and we'll choose two at random to each receive one playmat each. Good luck, comment away!Update: Contest over, comments closed. Thanks for entering everyone-- check your email to see if you won.
Wil Shipley appears in Penny Arcade
Wil Shipley, he of the Delicious Generation's namesake, appears in yesterday's Penny Arcade comic, as a guy hopefully waiting in the iPhone line. (Little does he know that they'll have plenty there even after he makes his way to the front.)The appearance came out of last year's Child's Play auction, in which Shipley donated a nice amount of money to charity for the privilege of appearing in a PA strip. On his blog, he says that he originally planned to have his iPhone held for him (along with PA Gabe's), but that turned out to be a no go with Apple, so they did actually stand in line together. And PA isn't the only place he's been seen standing in line-- Wil also got featured in the Seattle Times as an iPhone linewaiter. And finally, for those of you who appreciate a little blue (as in NSFW) humor, the guys from PA even did a special version of the strip just for Wil-- maybe all of this iPhone line fame is starting to go to the guy's head.
Weekly Webcomic Wrapup: 'Penny Arcade did it!' edition
Did you know that every game-related webcomic is just a knock-off of Penny Arcade? Most of our commenters have, at some point, figured it out and/or cried "PA did it!" as loud as they can with Lucida Grande font. Steve Napierski of Dueling Analogs figured it out, and explains the gospel in his latest strip. Have you all seen the light now?Here are our picks for the best Penny Arcade-related webcomics this week. Be sure to vote for your favorite! (And let us know of any gaming comics we may have unfortunately missed.) A cold day in Aiur Undisputed champion (for context) Superb technique New gameplan The ongoing war (hey, it's game-related) Surf strike (part 1, part 2)
'Stay gold, Zelda-cube'
Inspired by the craftsmanship and generosity of Morpheon Mods' Zelda-themed Wii and DS Lite auctions, Australian Michael Page hacked together a Hylian GameCube of his own to sell, pledging a portion of the proceeds to Penny-Arcade's Child's Play charity.The black-and-gold-painted system (PAL) features 11 bright LEDs in total, four of which light up through the holes drilled above the controller ports to indicate their player numbers. Additional LEDs have been installed next to the vents and inside the disc tray. According to Michael, the image of Navi on the transparent cover "looks amazing" when the blue glow hits it. The Legend of Zelda's phoenix and Triforce emblem have also been slapped onto the controller panel for extra effect. All that's missing now is the trademark "secret" chime whenever you open its lid. Hop onto Epona and gallop past the post break for more photos of the mod.
ThreeSpeech podcast producer makes a statement
While we didn't see anything wrong with the ThreeSpeech podcast (mostly because the reference went entirely over our heads), Jared Rea of Joystiq and the guys at Penny Arcade (they wrote a strip about them? Jealous.) are just a couple of people who did. Ben Furneaux, otherwise known as "The Man Who Said Those Things On That Podcast What People Didn't Like", has made a statement about what was said as an attempt to cool the fires of fanboydom that are licking at his feet.The statement can be found on his personal blog. In it he stands by the comments he made and suggests that most of the ill-will that was received after the podcast came from confusion about what relation the speakers had to Sony's PR machine. The answer, seemingly, is none. Does that make what was said any more acceptable? That's up to you. Though fanboys have got away with saying far worse. Be sure to read Ben's full statement. We assume the ThreeSpeech podcast will be continuing regardless of this entire debacle. Though if you're looking for an official straight-from-Sony podcast, then you'll probably need to wait for the PlayStation.Blog to start one. Which would not be a terrible idea.
