Archived News:
The Blizzard Entertainment Website
(thanks Worldofwar.net) has word that
sign-ups to beta test World of WarCraft, their upcoming MMORPG, will begin on
Wednesday: At 6:00 pm PST on Wednesday, January 28th, the signup period
for the World of Warcraft Beta Test will officially begin. We will provide a
link to the beta-test application right here in the news section at that time.
Testers are not going to be chosen on a first-come, first-served basis, so you
will be able to submit an application and receive equal consideration anytime
during the signup period, which will end on Wednesday, February 4th at 6:00 pm
PST. Please note that multiple submissions from the same household will result
in complete disqualification.
For this initial phase of the World of Warcraft beta test, we will only be able
to accept applications from Canada, Korea, and the US. The test for Europe and
other countries around the world will happen later this year. Please do not
contact us for further information regarding the beta test; we will be posting
an FAQ in the days ahead.
Gnostic Labs has announced Eschaton: Chain of
Command, "a multiplayer combat game that seamlessly combines real time
strategy and first person action." No release date is provided, but apparently
it will be released prior to the release of their massively multiplayer Eschaton
game (thanks HomeLAN Fed).
Here's a bit: Eschaton: Chain of Command takes you directly into the heat
of an epic space battle as you pilot a space-mech through an asteroid field,
lead a bomber squadron during a capital ship raid, blast fighters in an
interceptor, command a battleship against a space station, or play as a
commander, providing strategical direction to hundreds of units, many of which
are controlled by actual players. It is the only team-based, action-strategy
game that seamlessly combines the familiar elements of real-time strategy and
first person action, placing you in an organized space battle, with 30 different
classes of spacecraft. You`ll be able to command hundreds of units via a RTS
interface, or carry out those orders inside space mechs, fighters, bombers,
frigates, and battleships to go to war in spectacular space environments.
A new 2.00c "Retail Content Patch" for the Windows edition of
Savage: The Battle for
Newerth is now available (thanks Frans), along with new version 2.00b and
2.00c patches for the Linux edition of the RTS/FPS hybrid.
- Oz
The
American McGee Q&A on GameSpot talks with the Carbon 6 designer about
the announcement that Disney now has plans to create a trilogy of flix based
on the upcoming Wizard of Oz game.
- Dragon Empires
The
Peter Tyson Q&A on EGCore talks with the community rep for Dragon
Empires, Codemasters' upcoming MMORPG. The conversation touches
on where development stands at the moment, and a bit on the game and its
engine in general.
- Lagsters
There's
a Lagsters Q&A on Gaming
Chart chatting with Booat's Aleksey Alekseyev about plans for their
upcoming racing game. The Q&A is accompanied by five new screenshots.
The latest in the seemingly endless stream of GTA legal stories,
Vice City lawsuit switcheroo on GameSpot has word that the recently
announced lawsuit over the language in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
( story) is being changed from a Federal to a State lawsuit. Word
is: "According to the Miami Herald, the Haitian group's lawyer felt their case
was better-suited to a state court, where it would avoid the more lenient
federal freedom-of-speech standards."
The Pirates of the Burning Sea Website
(thanks Frans) has word of a delay to Flying Lab Software's upcoming seafaring
MMORPG: Now that we've reached Alpha, we've been updating our milestone
schedule for the rest of the project. Playing the Alpha has been a lot of fun --
in particular, combat is shaping up great -- but it's also made us more aware of
areas that we believe need more work. As a result, we're moving our expected
ship date to Q4 2004 and expanding our programming and art staff to tackle the
next milestone.
While we'd like to ship sooner than that, we don't want to rush the initial
release. This extra time will help us ensure the stability of the game, make it
more fun, and improve the quality of certain features.
There's a new
Empires: Dawn of the Modern World
patch updating Stainless Steel Studios' RTS game. The 12 MB update includes
a new random map among a number of other improvements, and is accompanied by a warning that a patch for the
Japanese version of the game is not available at this time. Thanks Frans
Thanks Frans.
- OMF: Battlegrounds
The
OMF Product Assurance Game
Patches Page now offers new patches for One Must Fall: Battlegrounds,
Diversions' robot fighting game, with an update from version 2090-2123, an
update from version 2121-2123, and a version 2112-2121 update, as there's no
direct 2112-2123 upgrade.
- Pax Romana (French)
There's a new 14 MB patch to update the
French version of Pax
Romana to version 1.01.
- NASCAR Racing 2003 (Mac)
There's a new version 1.2.7 update
for NASCAR Racing 2003 Season for Macintosh. The 256 MB download can be
found on MGF and
Extreme Sims (direct download). Also: "Along with this update Aspyr is
releasing Mac specific installers for several popular Project Wildfire user
mods for Nascar 2003- these mods are NOT supported by Aspyr, but run on the
Mac. For more information on the mods, go to the
Project Wildfire site. The
Project Wildfire Grand IROC mod (62MB) is at:
MGF and
Extreme Sims [(direct link)]. The Project Wildfire Grand National Series
mod (35MB) is at:
MGF and
Extreme Sims [(direct link)]. The Project Wildfire Craftsman Truck
Series mod (45MB) is at:
MGF and
Extreme Sims [(direct link)].
In case you were wondering where all those doofy emails have been coming from
today, the
High-Outbreak Threat Alert for W32-Mydoom@MM - NAI has the explanation of
the latest worm to hit the worm scene. Thanks Ant.
More game movies for your viewing pleasure, as there's a new EverQuest II
video on EQLounge
in 3ivx format. This
mirrors a video originally posted on
Ebonlore (registration required), and
there's an additional download mirror on
Worthplaying.
Also, there's a Desert Rats vs Afrika Korps movie on
Worthplaying composed of some new homebrew footage from the WW2 real-time
tactics game.
A story on
Cinescape (thanks nin) has word that the film rights to American McGee's
upcoming Wizard of Oz-inspired game have been acquired by Jerry Bruckheimer
Films and Walt Disney Pictures. Word is: "Although the film has no definitive
plan for when it will move into production, the screenwriting brother duo of
Kevin and Dan Hageman are now working on the film's script. Disney and
Bruckheimer envision the new OZ to be the first in a proposed trilogy of films."
There are a pair of
new Battlefield Vietnam movies on BF42.com showing off more gameplay from
Battlefield Vietnam, DICE's upcoming Vietnam War game. On clip comes from a
Dutch source, and is accompanied by a Dutch commentary, and the other showing
various bits of gameplay in a clip from this year's CyberX Games. Thanks Ant.
Also, the
Dark And Light Website (thanks Frans) offers two new development videos from
Dark and Light, the upcoming MMORPG. Finally, there's a new Torc
Interactive Tech Demo Video available on
FileShack (registration required) (thanks
HomeLAN Fed), showing
off tech from their game engine in Bink format.
- Team Sabre
The
Team Sabre Q&A on Computer And Video Games (thanks Frans) features some
"verbal fencing" with NovaLogic to learn more about plans for the upcoming
Team Sabre expansion for Delta Force: Black Hawk Down.
- D&D Online
There's
a D&D Online Q&A on Dungeons & Dragons Warcry chatting with some of the
folks at Turbine Entertainment about progress on D&D Online, their upcoming
MMORPG based on the seminal dice game.
- Flagship Studios
The
Bill Roper Q&A on Gamingeye
talks with Bill about his departure from Blizzard and the formation of
Flagship Studios, though he is not yet prepared to reveal any specifics on
their game development plans.
- TrackMania
HomeLAN
Fed's Trackmania Q&A is a conversation with Florent Castelnerac of
Nadeo, discussing their combination building and racing game, describing the
game and the response that it's met with, probing for info about plans
for a North American release and for a sequel.
Lieberman Denounces 'Grand Theft Auto' Video Game (thanks
HomeLAN Fed) offers
quotes from the presidential hopeful decrying the violence in GTA (presumably
meaning the most recent sequel) as "horrendous," referring to the bad example it
sets for the "next generation," in apparent disregard for the game's Mature 17+
rating.
Attending that conference yesterday was not only touching because of all the
commemoration of my mom, but it also managed to actually be interesting for me,
in spite of not being an educator (or educated, for that matter). It can be very
easy to be discouraged about the future sometimes, given some of the signs of
the times, but knowing there are so many educators out there putting so much
thought and effort into how to best serve society and future generations was
very heartening.
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