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Season three of The Guild launches on MSN Video
<a href="http://videoguide.msn.com/play/?g=6f31eb66-4360-439a-ad62-f2bdf28f550e" target="_new" title="Season 3 - Episode 1: Expansion Time">Video: Season 3 - Episode 1: Expansion Time</a> Everyone loves The Guild, the popular online series created by Felicia Day, especially us here at WoW.com, just check out the pictures from our BlizzCon meetup and the liveblog from The Guild panel. The third series kicked off in the wee small hours of this morning when the first episode went live on MSN Video and (for Gold members) Xbox Live. It looks like it's off to a cracking start as well, the Knights of Good are still in chaos after the final episode of season two. However Codex hopes that the release of a new expansion will mend the rifts between the guildies. You can check out the first episode above.The trailer was released last week and promises a guild war! Yes, they've found their nemeses in the form of a hotter group of players called the Axis of Anarchy (led by geek heartthrob Wil Wheaton who makes his series debut). On top of that the personal lives of the guildies seem to be in meltdown with Bladezz in four grand of debt, Tink is avoiding him and Vork's feeling like he skipped out on his GM duties. Oh and Zaboo's got a girlfriend! Due to the deal with Xbox Live, it's going to be a while before The Guild hits YouTube so for now check out the MSN Video page to get your fix if you don't have a 360.
BlizzCon 2009: The Guild's Michele Boyd and Jeff Lewis Worgen hands-on
Sitting in a convention booth all weekend at BlizzCon can actually be a pretty boring prospect. Sure, it's probably a lot of fun meeting people, and sure, unlike a certain team of bloggers, you're probably not run off your feet trying to gather up tons of pictures and information and experiences to write about. But think about it: you're in a booth, signing pictures and DVDs, stuck in the same 20 square feet all weekend long, with all of the promise of BlizzCon around you but just out of reach.Such, we imagined, was the plight of the cast of The Guild last weekend at BlizzCon, so when we heard that Michele Boyd (who plays "stupid tall hot girl" Riley in the show) and Jeff Lewis (who plays the singular Vork) both had 80s in the current game, we decided that instead of doing a normal boring interview with them, we'd give them a break: we'd take them over to the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm playable demo and let them have a go at the brand new Worgen starting area. It was the least we could do, given that they hadn't had any time to play yet.And in return, they gave us their impressions of the new starting area, had some fun finding kids in a cornfield, and talked about how and why they play the game. Read on for more.
The Queue: The Twitcave
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.Today I did something a little different for our questions and I went to Twitter. My first day really back on the job since BlizzCon, I was in the mood for some quick and easy questions. On a completely related note, yes, I did have Hawaiian Pizza at BlizzCon. How could I not?LOLNAIDERS asked... "Do you think Worgen racials are as stupidly overpowered as everyone's complaining about?" I'm going to argue semantics a little bit. Yes, I think the racials are very cool and exciting, probably more fun than any of the other racials currently in game. I don't think they're overpowered. Well, the various speed boosts might be pretty wild in the arena, but we already have some crazy PvP racials in the game. I'm quite fond of Every Man. They did mention at BlizzCon that they want racials to be a little more fun, so I think most races will end up with things on par with what the Worgen/Goblins have in the end. That's my hope, anyway.
BlizzCon 2009: WoW.com interviews Sandeep Parikh
Sandeep Parikh has alternately charmed and creeped out fans of The Guild as Zaboo, the hapless love interest of Felicia Day's Codex. Ever since the very beginning of the series, he's made for some of the web show's most awkward, and not coincidentally, most funny moments. And while the guy behind the character is definitely funny, he's also clued-in in a way that Zaboo isn't -- coming from an improv background, he knows how to put a scene together, and he's got a good amount of web video experience himself from producing, writing, and directing the popular (and very NSFW) Legend of Neil series.We sat down at BlizzCon with Sandeep to talk about his work on both web series, including Felicia Day's secret blue streak, what you can do with alcohol and an old Nintendo system, and what's in store for his character in The Guild's upcoming season 3. Read on below.
BlizzCon 2009: WoW.com interviews Felicia Day
At this point, Felicia Day probably doesn't even need an introduction -- she's likely the biggest celebrity to come out of the WoW community since Leroy Jenkins. Her webseries The Guild, about a group of MMO gamers very similar to the ones we play with every day, has been seen and loved all over the world, and Felicia herself is spotted all over television lately (yes, tipsters to this site, that is her in the Sears commercial, and we also heard during The Guild panel at BlizzCon last weekend that she'll be back on Dollhouse again soon).We've followed her and her show since almost day one -- back before she was demoing Twitter on Xbox at E3 and winning Streamy awards, we've talked with her about what it's like to be a gamer and make a TV show that people said you couldn't make. She was kind enough to sit down with us at BlizzCon 2009 and chat with us again: you can read the exclusive interview after the break.The Guild's third season actually starts tomorrow, on MSN and Xbox Live. There's a trailer due out on MSN today -- as soon as it releases, we'll embed it into this post. Thanks once again to Felicia for chatting with us, and we can't wait to see what's next.
BlizzCon 2009: The short version
For all those of you out there who don't have the time to slog through the 100+ articles we published on BlizzCon 2009, we've condensed the events of the past few days into the most important things you need to know: THE END OF WRATH: Developers gave some pretty revealing information on what we can expect to see in patch 3.2.2 (the revamped Onyxia raid) and in patch 3.3, where we'll finally stare down Arthas himself. THE NEXT EXPANSION: Blizzard's own loremaster Chris Metzen debuted the first trailer for the next expansion, titled World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, and that sound you hear is millions of players who can't believe Blizzard would ever pull a stunt this big. Cataclysm's basic storyline features the return of Deathwing and the re-sundering of the world in his wake, forever altering Azeroth's classic landscape and sending players to previously unseen parts of the world like the Lost Isles, Hyjal, Gilneas, Uldum, and Grim Batol. FEATURES OF CATACLYSM: The most important features of the next expansion include two new races (Goblins for the Horde and Worgen for the Alliance), new class possibilities for existing races, a new secondary skill, character stat simplification, cross-server instances, the ability to level and "talent" your guild, new means of character advancement through the Path of the Titans, Mastery, and the revamping of the talent system, and rated battlegrounds. LIVEBLOGS: We blogged and liveblogged the convention from start to finish: the Opening Ceremony, the WoW Preview panel, the WoW Art panel, The Guild's panel, the first and second WoW Class, Items, and Professions Panels, the general WoW Q&A, the Breaking Into the Industry panel, the Game Systems panel, and the Raids and Dungeons panel. FUN AND GAMES: Even in the middle of all the craziness, we still found time for our third annual Reader Meetup (we expected maybe 300 people and got 1200+) with the cast of The Guild present, Premonition's live raid, the Costume contest, and the Dance and Soundalike contests. If you'd like a more thorough look at how BlizzCon 2009 went, visit our round-ups on Day One and Day Two of the con for a more complete guide to our articles, galleries, and videos.
Day one of BlizzCon 2009: Round-up
Well, folks, the first day of BlizzCon went by in a blur, and we're still bouncing about all the stuff that was announced yesterday. If you don't want to slog through a ton of entries to get the TL:DR version, we've prepped a recap for you that'll take you to the highlights: WORLD OF WARCRAFT: OH SNAP: A little expansion by the name of Cataclysm was officially announced, with a world of pain now on its way to classic Azeroth and two new races. The official FAQ can be read here (and also on the official site) and we blogged through a look at the new starting zones and quests. All haters, disbelievers, skeptics, muggers, druggers, post-modernists, and trolls, we are graciously willing to accept your apologies. Line forms to the left, people. No pushing! And mister, I hope you brought enough gum for everybody. NEW FEATURES: These include the new races, Goblins and Worgen (Horde and Alliance respectively), the reordering and rezoning of much of Azeroth, an array of new race/class possibilities, a brand-new secondary skill, and some shake-ups in class mechanics and character/guild advancement. BATTLE.NET: Battle.net will gain new features in the expansion, including an XBox-Livesque ability to see what your friends are playing and which servers they're on, in addition to sending messages to them. PICTURES: Here's a map of the reordered post-Cataclysm Azeroth, a gallery of the art display at BlizzCon (containing some Cataclysm art, employee-decorated noobz, and Starcraft and Diablo universe pieces), a dedicated gallery for Cataclysm concept art, and a gallery of the costumes at BlizzCon. VIDEOS: We have video for you of the Cataclysm trailer, what Azeroth zones will look like post-Cataclysm, and the animation for Human-to-Worgen transformation. THE GUILD: The entire cast showed up and brought the funny at their live panel and at our reader meet-up. Gallery here! %Gallery-70668%%Gallery-70682%%Gallery-70630%%Gallery-70696% BlizzCon 2009 is here! WoW.com has continuing coverage, bringing you the latest in Cataclysm news, live blogs, galleries, and reports right from the convention floor. Check out WoW.com's Guide to BlizzCon for the latest!
BlizzCon 2009: The Guild Panel Live Blog
The Guild was at our meetup last night (bloggers and Internet stars -- guess who's who above), and now they're about to take the floor at BlizzCon. We're standing by to hear what Felicia and the cast have to say about the new season, the upcoming comic book, and the geeky tour de force that is The Guild.Liveblogging starts right after the break -- newest at the top. Should be fun!%Gallery-70707%
BlizzCon 2009: WoW.com meet-up, The Aftermath
What a night! Last night, the Anabella Hotel in Anaheim, CA played host to the WoW.com BlizzCon Meetup, and WoW.com readers turned out for the festivities. And festivities there certainly were! Master of ceremonies Mike Schramm ran some great giveaways with gear from Creative and other WoW-themed items, Daniel Whitcomb drank too much and confessed his undying love for me, 1400 readers joined in on our live Ustream show ... and then the cast of The Guild showed up and the place exploded. Not literally, but metaphorically. Oh, and over 1200 of you showed up at the meetup throughout the entire evening. There was that too. (And the WoW.com crew out there were beyond thrilled to see so many of you.) Felicia Day (pictured above with our very own Zach Yonzon) and pals seemed to enjoy themselves quite a bit as they hung out with fans and fellow gamers, posing for photos and poundin' brews with the WoW.com crew. Thanks to everyone who came out, and I'm glad you enjoyed yourselves despite my conspicuous absence. A special, 25-man-sized thank you to our own Mike Gray for working tirelessly in the weeks leading up to BlizzCon to make this meetup happen.Check out our shots of the meetup in our gallery below! %Gallery-70630% BlizzCon 2009 is here! WoW.com has continuing coverage, bringing you the latest in Cataclysm news, live blogs, galleries, and reports right from the convention floor. Check out WoW.com's Guide to BlizzCon for the latest!
New BlizzCon 2009 schedule available
Mere minutes after we posted the fact that Blizzard had retracted their previous schedule, they released a new one. The layout of the new schedule is less pleasing to the eyes and a bit harder to read, but there's certainly some interesting stuff there.For example, the first panel after the opening ceremonies is a "World of Warcraft Preview Panel." Previewing... what? Personally, I'm going to throw money down on Cataclysm. Also, it appears the PvP panel is gone. Folded into the two 1-hour long "class, item and profession" panels, perhaps? Then again, the PvP panel was really about the arena and battleground maps last year, wasn't it? If there's a Cataclysm preview, it very well might be a part of that. The Guild is also no longer competing with a WoW panel, and there's a new panel first thing on Saturday about breaking into the gaming industry. Plus, a 'live raid' panel probably similar to what they had at the last Worldwide Invitational: Watch one of the top guilds in the world tackle a high-end raid boss. Algalon, perhaps? Cool stuff. BlizzCon 2009 is coming up on August 21st and 22nd! We've got all the latest news and information. At BlizzCon you can play the latest games, meet your guildmates, and ask the developers your questions. Plus, there's some great looking costumes.
Felicia Day unleashes geeky pop single
I'll confess that I never had a crush on Felicia Day, the Internet sensation behind The Guild. I mean, I always thought it was cool that she wore her geek cred with pride, but it was just that -- awesome, attractive geek chick. Alright, so maybe it helps a little (ok, fine, it helps a whole freaking lot) that she Tweets about her D&D campaign or delights over gaming dice. But if you're an idiot geek like me who never got into the whole Felicia Day thing, resistance, as they say, is futile. The multi-talented entertainer, who showed her vocal chops in Joss Whedon's Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, also seems geared to become a pop star with the release of (Would you like to date my) Avatar, a catchy song about MMOs. And man, if you don't crush on her after this, you need to turn over your geek badge (even you ladies).The song debuted at the recent San Diego Comic-con, with the cast of the Guild sending fans into a frenzy when they took to the stage in full costume. Felicia Day goes wild with MMO innuendo, crooning, "don't care what's in your character bank, how 'bout a little tank and spank?" and "I'm better than a real world quest -- you'll touch my +5 to Dexterity vest." The song, available on Amazon for $0.99, is pure geek pop win. But if you want the full experience, the video features the entire cast of The Guild and their antics -- Vork and Zaboo with a short rap segment, Clara doing some back-up vocals, Tink stepping up with her dance, and Bladezz, well, he looks seductively at the camera. Check out the embed below to see what the video holds for you. If you're a fan of The Guild and headed to BlizzCon, you'd be happy to know Felicia Day and her crew will be making an appearance. Get the song or the video, memorize the lyrics, and who knows, she just might grant you an autograph. If you'll be at home during BlizzCon, just "grab your mouse and stroke the keys" because at least, as Codex sings, "in Cyberspace there's no disease."The video after the break!
Cast of The Guild making an appearance at BlizzCon '09
Fans and followers of the popular web series The Guild, loosely based on World of Warcraft, should be excited to know that the show's cast will be making an appearance at BlizzCon this year! Blizzard Community Manager Nethaera confirmed the news with an announcement on the official forums. Blizzard's forum post on the subject says that The Guild will have both its own booth and its own discussion panel at BlizzCon, where the cast (like geek goddess Felicia Day) will show off exclusive clips from the show's upcoming third season. This is a great move by Blizzard, given that the show is clearly based off of WoW and the communities for each share quite an overlap. If you've never seen The Guild before, now would be a good time to catch up on what you're missing from this award-winning show at http://www.watchtheguild.com. BlizzCon 2009 is coming up on August 21st and 22nd! We've got all the latest news and information. At BlizzCon you can play the latest games, meet your guildmates, and ask the developers your questions. Plus, there's some great looking costumes.
Videos from The Guild panel at SDCC '09
Fan of The Guild? Me too! And you didn't go to Comic-Con last weekend? Me either. Fortunately for us, Microsoft kept the promotion cameras rolling almost the whole week long, and so there's more footage of The Guild at Comic-Con than you probably have time to watch today (although as long as your boss stays away from looking over your shoulder, you can probably give it a try). They went behind the scenes of the show, Felicia Day chatted with Xbox Live's Major Nelson, and the cast talked about what it was like to be around all of the energy at Comic-Con. There's not a lot of new stuff that fans of the show don't already know, but there are some clips of the panel in there, as well as some shots of the characters as they showed up to the Con: dressed in their in-game costumes.Some of the videos are also available right on Xbox Live (and there's quite a bit of Xbox and Microsoft pimping in the videos, but what do you expect -- not only did MS fund the show's season, but they apparently hooked them up with a party bus and a party to go with it at the Con), and YouTube is also brimming with clips from the panel. Apparently the Whedon-directed music video is also now available on Xbox Live as well, so that should be something to see. Season 3 is just around the corner, and we're still expecting to see these guys at BlizzCon in a few weeks, so stay tuned for more Guild news as we hear it.
The Guild comic book, and other news from the SDCC panel
The Guild's Twitter account is tweeting up a storm from the panel about our favorite Internet series at Comic-Con, and there's a whole downpour of news already. Probably biggest is the news that Dark Horse Comics will be publishing a comic book featuring characters from Felicia Day's show, penned by none other than Ms. Day herself. Details are still hard to find (there's no mention of the book yet on DHC's site), but we presume it'll be about the real-life personas of The Guild folks, rather than a story about their characters. That'll be interesting to see.Other news from the panel is that Season 3 is coming soon, and it'll feature a special guest: Mr. Wil Wheaton, former Star Trek annoyance (sorry, I didn't like him at all), and current geek icon. Apparently they showed a sneak peek at the panel and a Jed Whedon-directed music video (featuring Vork spanking Codex and Tink dancing?), so as soon as we see either of those, we'll be posting them here.And finally, apparently Jeff Lewis (a.k.a. Vork) has announced that he'll be marrying his wife in the game, though we have no idea if that's a joke or not. With these Guild guys, you can never tell. Lots more news about season 3 to come, we're sure, and of course we'll see all of these folks at BlizzCon -- here's the interview we did with them last year. We've got at least one contact on the ground at Comic-Con this week, so stay tuned for more news from San Diego, too. Like The Guild? We do, too! We've got all the episodes of the first season: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, as well as links to all of the season two shows, We recently talked with Michele Boyd at E3, and we'll definitely be seeing all of the cast and crew at BlizzCon again later this year.
'The Guild' scheduled to raid Comic-Con
If referencing one of the world's most popular online games on a regular basis doesn't give them enough "geek cred," cast members of the popular "internet TV show," The Guild, will be on hand for a laundry list of events during this week's San Diego Comic-Con.Internet darling Felicia Day and other stars of The Guild are holding a panel discussion on Friday, July 24, at 10:30AM (Pacific), with promises of a sneak peak at season three of the show and an exclusive Comic-Con video. Festivities continue with The Guild panel signing autographs from noon until 1PM and conclude with a Game with Fame session where The Guild cast will throw down in some hardcore Marvel vs. Capcom 2 action at 2PM. The Guild: Season 3 is slated to hit Xbox Live this fall and our hearts always.
The Guild shooting season 3, fires director (not really)
Our friends over at The Guild are hard at work on season 3 -- if you've been following their Twitter feeds, you'll have seen that shooting is underway en masse, and while we haven't yet heard when they'll be done, it sounds like they're already keeping some long hours over there. Such long hours, in fact, that tempers are apparently flaring on the set -- as you can see above, director and editor Sean Becker has become a victim of Felicia Day's (substantial?) wrath, and been fired from the show.Ok, not really -- they're just joking around. But even if he's kidding about what's in that "guild 3 master" box, we at least know there is a season 3 master, and that sooner than ever, we'll be able to see just what happened when Codex took that out-of-body sprint at the end of season 2. Can't wait to see it.
The Guild hosts a Worst Guild Candidate Ever video contest
The Guild (which, as we were told by Michele Boyd last week, just started putting together their third season last weekend) is having a video contest, with a little twist. They want you to make a one minute video of a potential guildie for The Guild that would obviously get rejected -- in other words, a worst guild candidate ever video contest. So maybe you could clearly be a loot hog, or not know anything about your character (but claim to know everything). Or whatever else you come up with -- it sounds like they want the entries to be as embarrassingly bad as possible. To enter, you'll just have to create a video, upload it to a sharing site like YouTube or Vimeo (make sure you save a high-quality original of it just in case), and then drop them an email with a link to the video.Sounds like fun. If you win, you'll get featured on their website, and/or have a chance to get your video on their season 3 DVD release. They've also got legal rules over on their site (unfortunately, it's US-only, like so many other contests on the Internet), and have discussions about the contest going on their forums as well. Good luck to all who enter -- we can't wait to see the results!
E3 2009: Torchlight will morph from single player game to MMO
Coming from the desginers who made Diablo, Mythos, Mythos II and Fate, we're expecting quite a lot from their new title, Torchlight. This classic Diablo style 2D hack-and-slasher can in every way be considered the spiritual successor to Mythos, and in some ways even more closer to the original Diablo. For instance, Torchlight is a town with another world underneath it -- that and it's going to be a single player RPG before it goes MMO. But rest assured, it will go MMO in a year to a year and a half.First, we'll discuss features that will exist at singleplayer launch later this year, then we'll cover the new elements planned when the game expands into a massively multiplayer game. Check it all out after the jump along with gameplay footage, complete with Felicia Day of The Guild trying her hand at a beta version of the Action RPG.%Gallery-65189%
WoW.com meets Michele Boyd of The Guild at E3
World of Warcraft isn't actually at this year's E3 -- Activision Blizzard has a great big booth with lots of cool games in it, but none of them are Blizzard's. We guess they're saving everything for the big event at BlizzCon. But we still found someone cool to meet on the floor -- The Guild's Michele Boyd (you can see her here in the last Season 2 episode) was working on the show floor for THQ, and was kind enough to stop by and talk to me before she went off to actually, you know, see some videogames (we heard there's some here, but we've been too busy writing about all the cool stuff we're seeing on Joystiq and Massively).As you can see above, she's hosting a series on Discovery Channel (and she's got the science chops to do it), she's currently rocking an Enhancement Shaman (in Outland, not Northrend -- what can I say, I was confused by her awesomeness), and she's got some good thoughts on what's up in the next season of The Guild. Big thanks again to her for chatting with us, enjoy the video!
The Guild renewed for third season, beginning late summer
As if there was any doubt, the Hollywood Reporter writes that Felicia Day's hit online sitcom, The Guild, has been renewed for a third season, courtesy of Microsoft. The third season will contain twelve episodes and will begin in "late summer," with a sneak peek available at this year's San Diego Comic-Con. As part of the agreement with Microsoft, episodes will once again be made available on Xbox Live and Microsoft's online video portal. Felicia Day is currently in the process of writing the episodes, with plans to begin production in June. With regards to the plot, cards are being kept very close to Day's chest, though she has said that "the cliffhanger in Season 2 is pretty dramatic, and the repercussions of that will be felt by the guild [in season 3]. Expect a lot of real-life distractions for the characters and some hurt feelings from the last season."We'll be there with bells on. In the meantime, The Guild fans can pre-order the season 2 DVD at Amazon in preparation for its May 19 release.[Via @Feliciaday]
