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Servers are up
It looks like everything went okay with the server hamsters this morning as the servers are back up and running smoothly. In fact, it appears that all the servers are up right now. This is an oddity since usually there are at least one or two battlegroups that are down longer than the rest.There is no patch 2.4.2 on the live servers right now, and the PTR (Public Test Realm) is still up and running for additional testing. Hopefully within the next week or two patch 2.4.2 will go live for us all.WoW Insider will carry any updates on sever outages throughout the day. Enjoy your Tuesday!
Tuesday morning at WoW Insider
It's Tuesday morning and the hamsters that run the servers are being fed by Blizzard, which means all the realms are down for extended maintenance until at least 11:00 a.m. PDT. There is no patch 2.4.2 to look forward to when the servers go back up this afternoon, but that might not be that bad of a thing. Usually patch days mean add-on trouble and serious server stability issues. Those spell disaster for anyone expecting to enjoy the evening.While the servers are offline, go ahead and get your WoW fix from us! We've got a few dandy articles to entice you and keep your WoW addiction in full swing. Take a look at the official and unofficial patch notes for patch 2.4.2. Highlights include reduced cooldown timers, changes in the hand specifications of some weapons, and new polymorphing mechanics. A talented rogue was able to tank the seventh boss in the Black Temple, Mother Shahraz, by stacking insane amounts of avoidance and agility. Take a look at the video of the encounter, definitely worth watching if you have a minute. SK-Gaming killed M'uru (the next-to-last boss in the Sunwell Plateau) over the weekend. M'uru dropped some nice loot for them. Check out what they got in their world first kill. Did you know Blizzard launched a new and improved online store? The best part about it is that if you buy something, you can click a little check box that gives you a chance to be selected to participate in a beta. I ordered a tee-shirt over the weekend, and have my fingers crossed that I'll get in a certain beta test pretty soon (I could care less about the tee-shirt, naturally). Sean Forsgren recently profiled one of my favorite add-ons, Dr. Damage. It's a great tool that gives you very useful statistics about all your spells in the form of extended tooltips. Take a minute to look into it now, and get it all downloaded and setup for when the servers come back online later today. When the severs do come back online, WoW Insider will let you know. Hopefully there won't be any major stability issues tonight, but if there are, we'll be covering that too. Enjoy your downtime!
Tuesday morning maintenance
Sometimes I feel like Blizzard chooses a handful of random servers to Ice Block every few days – not letting players on, and giving a (hopefully) short window when the servers will be offline.If you're on the unlucky servers of Agamaggan, Azshara, Baelgun, Dark Iron, Detheroc, Emerald Dream, Greymane, Kalecgos, Lightninghoof, Maelstrom, Malfurion, Moonrunner, Nazjatar, Sargeras, Staghelm, Twisting Nether, Ursin, WildHammer, or either of the Tournamenet Servers, you're going to have at least two hours of downtime from 5:00 a.m. PDT until 7:00 a.m. PDT. Blizzard will also be doing rolling restarts across all realms this morning.For those of you waiting to get your morning fix of WoW, fear not. There are several pieces of news and entertaining reads to catch up on.New WotLK alpha screenshots – Did you know that WotLK is in alpha, and the first batch of new screenshots has been leaked? We've got them confirmed from an inside source and mirrored here for your enjoyment.As a tank, I hate to pug. Our Warrior columnist Matthew Rossi agrees with me. Check out his enlightening piece for One reason tanks won't pug. And I hope the subject of his piece, Primula, enjoys his or her new found fame as one lowly ninja-looter.Do you have a life outside of WoW? Not that I do, but if I did I would be a casual player and appreciate Robin Torres' advice from WoW, Casually: Finding groups fast. Just remember that they don't always have to be random pug groups.Two pieces of Season 4 gear have been accidently enabled by a GM on the live realms. You can check out the new stats and have look at them. They remind me a bit of the Ori from Stargate, so I have to ask: Hallowed are the Ori, anyone? Hopefully the bosses at Blizzard are a bit more understand than the Ori and will let the GM that made this mistake keep his job.And finally you can check out my new favorite column of the week, [1. Local] by Lisa Poisso. Lisa takes a look at all the comments posted on WoW Insider and rounds up the best of them for us to marvel over. I know that I've sent her a few lately.Happy Tuesday everyone!%Gallery-21057%
Surf's Up had better use the Wiimote as a surfboard
We just wanted to get that in there nice and early, because it's important. You can infer from the rather pointed headline that a game based on the upcoming CG kids' movie Surf's Up has been announced for the Wii.Ubisoft will be bringing the videogame version of Sony Pictures' Surf's Up to pretty much every system we can think of, which is pretty much standard operating procedure. The game will feature voice acting from many of the movie's stars, including Shia LeBoeuf, Jeff Bridges, and Jethro from the Beverly Hillbillies movie. There are two reasons that we think Surf's Up could turn out okay: first, it's being developed by Ubisoft Montreal, who are responsible for the Prince of Persia series; and second, surfing seems like a natural for the Wiimote. At least, we hope it's good, because we're certain lots of kids are going to want it.[Via NeoGAF]
Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI Wii-ward
Must ... resist ... urge to use "Thwii" pun ...Now that we've sufficiently girded, here's the news: the PS2 Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI is getting an enhanced port on the Wii, to be released in Japan on March 21st with the enhanced title Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI with Power-Up Kit. Along with the obvious Wiimote functionality, the game will be getting some new gameplay modes and scenarios.After trying to figure out the first NES Romance, we swore the series off forever. Kudos to those of you who managed to play these things.[Via GAME Watch]
Yamaha's new 1080p up-scaling lineup -- from receivers to DVD players
Yamaha just released a slew of new high-def products on the A/V world: two new receivers and three new up-scaling DVD players. The receivers both have the HDMI 1080p inputs and output along with an new and improved video processor. The big brother of the two, the RX-V2700 up-scales analog and digital video to 720p or 1080i on all three of its HDMI ports while neither one of the V1700 does. They both are sporting XM and iPod interfaces plus, the V2700 has an Ethernet port for Yamaha's MusicCAST music service. The three DVD players start at $999 for the S2700, then $449 for the S1700 and then Yamaha dropped the price on their older DVD-S659 from $749 to $179. The two new ones are powered by Faroudja DCDi and can scale video sources up to 720p, 1080i, and all the way up to 1080p. The new DVD player's sound great but that DVD-S659 price drop sounds a little more tempting. [Via HDBlog]
News wrap-up from E3!
The industry's biggest event is now over, and while posting on the Joystiq mothership maybe have taken up all of our time, we can't forget about our Fanboys. We've got some post-E3 reflections on the way, so get ready. Here's an aggregate of the show coverage: Engadget & Joystiq's live coverage of Sony's PlayStation 3 E3 event PS3 impressions: Resistance Fall of Man PS3 impressions: Sonic the Hedgehog PS3 Impressions: Heavenly Sword PS3 impressions: Virtua Tennis Joystiq hands-on: new PS3 controller Joystiq Video: Resistance Fall of Man E3 Vox Populi: What are your thoughts on the PS3 prices? E3 Vox Populi: Will lack of rumble hurt the PS3? E3 Vox Populi: Who had the best press conference? E3 booth tours: Sony A look at EA's new realism tools The PS3 controller that might have been Sony's PS3 is still $600 Microsoft befriends Nintendo in fight vs Sony First look: The Club (Xbox 360 & PS3) The jacket that says "I can afford a PS3" Sony's Play Beyond campaign played up at E3 Extended 15-minute MGS4 trailer on the hour PS3 worth its weight in Uranium Dual Shake functionality tacked on at last minute Anatomy of shame: Dual Shake vs. Wiimote Sony steals motion idea, but not from Nintendo New PS3 controller loses DualShock vibration PS3 investing in tangible user interfaces PS3: A tale of 2 SKUs Clash of the Consoles: a sneak peek! PlayStation 3 in its final form The real PlayStation 3 controller revealed Final Fantasy XIII announced for PS3
HDBeat Review: Helios HVD2085
DVD up-scalers are all the rage these days. They cost all the way from $100 to more than your HDTV does. But what are they?DVD up-scalers take a standard 480i signal and can present it to the TV in a variety of resolutions. Generally you would want to give the HDTV its native resolution. i.e. most plasmas are 720p so that is what you should set the DVD player for. Most digital TVs can only display one resolution and have scalers built-in, but sometimes they are not that great. These DVD players are designed to help, or replace, those internal scalers which will theoreticaly make a better picture. Will they make the DVDs high-def: no; will your DVDs look better: most will. Neodigits was kind enough to send us their lastest up-scaling DVD player the HVD2085. This thing is loaded. Up-scaling all the way to 1080p via HDMI and component, 5.1 digital and analog outputs, VGA, and "Smart Play." (more info in the full review). Click on for the full review.
Getting Up Revolution bound
Over at Gamedaily BIZ, an interview with Marc Ecko discusses reviewers tearing apart his garbage game and the possibility of Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure hitting the Revolution. When asked about bringing the game to the Revolution, utilzing the remote as if it were a spay paint can, Ecko stated "We're all over it. We are doing our due diligence now. I think community is ultimately what the brand experience needs to be about, and I think that's what's going to drive our decisions largely and the ability to customize the art." I can't be the only person that doesn't want this to release on the Revolution, can I?
