June 20, 2007 -- This summer Valve will ship a major update to its online gaming platform Steam, introducing an advanced set of community features to more than 13 million gamers around the world.

Beginning in July, Steam users can set up their own personal Steam pages and profiles, create and join groups, schedule games with friends, review who they've played with, see how well everyone played, chat with groups, chat via voice, and more. These new community services and features can be used with all Steam games, which include new releases and classic titles from leading publishers and independent developers.

Free of charge, the new community features will be accessible via the Steam desktop client and via the web.

• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
  A new Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare trailer shows off a level called The Bog from Infinity Ward's upcoming military shooter sequel. The clip can be found on 3D Downloads, FileShack, and Gamer's Hell.
• Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2
  A new Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 video developer's diary #2 discussing the upcoming military shooter sequel is available on Gamer's Hell,
• Combat Mission: Shock Force
  Four new Combat Mission: Shock Force gameplay movies show off more of the upcoming strategy game, the downloads are available on FileFront and Gamer's Hell.
• Transformers: The Game
  A third trailer from Transformers: The Game is now available on AtomicGamer, FileFront, and Gamer's Hell.

• Eschalon: Book I
  The Eschalon: Book I Q&A on GameBanshee talks with Thomas Riegsecker, programmer on the upcoming throwback RPG: "Well, I think the biggest problem with the current crop of RPGs is that publishers are continually looking to get bigger returns on their investments, and to do so developers must make a game that is going to attract the largest possible customer base. To achieve this, RPGs have become simpler and more action-oriented over the years. Today’s RPGs must compete for market share with first-person shooters and third-person adventure games, and they do this by eliminating most of the complexity inherent to the genre. Publishers don’t seem to care that the hard-core RPGers who gave birth to the role-playing genre are the very customers they are squeezing out of their sales. These RPG enthusiasts are looking for a true role-playing experience, not a medieval version of Halo."
• Richard Garriott
  WarCry's Richard Garriott Interview, Part #1 is actually part two of a three-parter, as part one is on The Escapist, covering a variety of gaming topics, of course including Tabula Rasa: "The big thing that we did change, however, was the visual representation of the world. When we decided to create the aesthetic look of our world, we originally tried to do this hybrid Western-Asian visual and animation style for our characters and things of this nature. What we found was we really compromised ourselves into a corner. It wasn't Western enough for us to get super jazzed about it and it wasn't Eastern enough for them to get super jazzed about it. And we found that we fell in this awkward center position that people on neither side of the ocean were particularly compelled by. We scrapped quite a substantial chunk of art and started over with a look and feel that we much stronger confidence in here in the West and actually, frankly, because it was not the compromised look they even like it better in the East. We will then once we get the game out here in the States we will make some visual modifications to optimize it for Asia."

• Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars on GameSpy and IGN.
• Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights on IGN.
• World in Conflict on GameShark.

• Heroes of Might & Magic V - Tribes of the East on GBASE.

• Sony, Nintendo forbid AO-rated Manhunt 2.
• 2K Sports Announces First Details of NHL 2K8.
• Feeling cool How to tell if your repaired Xbox 360 has the new additional heatsink.
• Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer Ships For Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Playstation 2, and Wii.
• Warriors Orochi Announced for Xbox 360 and PS2.

• Apple Releases Mac OS X 10.4.10. Thanks Ant and Digg.

• Contra 4 Announced for DS.
• PopCap Mobile Innovation Will Come from Smaller Developers.
• Verizon CEO whistling past the iPhone?

• DOJ pushes Microsoft to produce Vista SP1 in '07. Thanks Mike Martinez.

• Apple waters down the web on iPhone. Not what their ads say.
• Denim giants Levi’s launches new mobile phone.

• Zap2It Labs Discontinuing Free TV Guide Service.

• We reported the Spore delay six weeks ago (story), no need to keep sending links to the rehash that has cropped up (but thanks for keeping us in the loop)…
• The games that incurred the wrath of the censors the world over. Thanks Mike Martinez…

This is what you've been waiting for: The first batch of Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars Public Beta keys is scheduled to go out shortly via FilePlanet's ETQW Public Beta website! All you have to do is go to the URL mentioned below, log in with your FilePlanet account and, if keys are available at that time, you'll be able to claim yours along with the ETQW Public Beta Client. Please note that today's keys are for FilePlanet subscribers only.

So, here's the scoop for today:

Key Distribution Start: 10 AM Pacific / 1 PM Eastern / 1800 British / 1900 Central European
Key Distribution Website: http://www.fileplanet.com/promotions/quakewars/

If you have an IRC client, such as mIRC, come join us in #etqwbeta on irc.quakenet.org, the official ETQW Public Beta channel on IRC (or click here if you have an IRC client installed). A few of us Splash Damage and id Software guys are there right now to celebrate the long-anticipated launch of the ETQW Public Beta.

Peacock net comedy will be the first-ever Hollywood license for the publisher, which makes inexpensive arcade-style games. It plans to turn "The Office" into a humorous game in which players have to handle jobs and play pranks at Dunder Mifflin's Scranton branch.

"We were anxious to expand our audience with a property that has broad appeal and works well as a game," said MumboJumbo VP of product development Mike Suarez. "It will help us to demonstrate that casual games are the true mass videogame market."

MumboJumbo has likeness rights to the show's cast, who will be portrayed as bobblehead-type dolls. Game will also feature audio and video clips from the show.

We're already well underway with Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar 1.7 (actually 1.61 will be available shortly which will have some graphics engine tweaks/fixes for some users who had problems with 1.6).

So what will 1.7 have in it? The screenshot on the right shows the new maintenance and leasing summary screen (and leases are getting a revamping to make them more attractive to use by both players and computer AI).

Other features include a new local high score list with a new hall of fame screen, Starbase managers, Starbase modules that raise maximum HP, Constructor rally point management, new mega events (based on player suggestions), Anomalies randomly return, a new type of governor based on rally point destination, updated computer AI, updated diplomacy AI, and more! Stay tuned!

We have noticed a sharp increase in soldiers reporting that their stats, awards, and rank are not updating. This is under heavy investigation since, as you know, the ranking system is a central feature of the game.
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I would like to thank everyone who contributed server information in this thread. I have more than enough to report up (I was actually suprized at how widespread this is to be honest). Hopefully all of this information will put us a step closer to getting everything back on track.
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I've asked for an update on progress but have not recieved any news yet. I'll post again when I get in tomorrow morning and let you know if I have anything new to report.
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I appreciate your patience as we work to resolve this issue and I'll provide updates in this main post as I recieve them.

• BioShock
  Conference Call Episode 36 on Gamers With Jobs offers their latest podcast, which includes an interview with Ken Levine of Irrational Games about BioShock, Irrational's upcoming first-person shooter.
• Prominence
  The Mike Morrison Q&A on Adventure Classic Gaming talks with the president of Digital Media about Prominence, the upcoming point-and-click adventure: "We decided early on to make a game that we would want to play. Here in the U.S., the average game player is 33 years old. That’s our generation. We’ve been playing games for – well, a long time in my case – but for most of my generation, about 15 to 20 years if they were weaned on the likes of the Commodore 64 or Atari 800. I’ve played many types of games: shooters, RTSs, RPGs, MMOs, simulations…but I always come back to adventure games. Adventure games are a unique genre. To me, they are incredibly compelling. They have the potential to be more cinematic than any film, more dramatic than any book, and more immersive than any other kind of game. It’s the perfect platform to make a science-fiction game that isn’t focused on shooting things."

• Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising on MMORPG.COM.
• Guild Wars: Eye of the North on Gaming Nexus.
• World In Conflict on Internode Games Network.

• Galactic Assault on Strategy Informer.
• War Leaders: Clash of Nations on Strategy Informer.

• New Maps for C&C 3 on Xbox 360.
• Collector's Edition For 360 Stranglehold Announced.
• Project Gotham Racing 4 Video - The Snow in Nürburgring.
• FIFA Soccer 08 PlayStation 3 Screenshots.
• Madden NFL 08 Xbox 360 Screenshots.
• College student gets hundreds of cell phone calls due to HALO 3 viral marketing campaign.

• Mtron claims speediest solid-state disk.
• Dell fesses to more vertical line issues -- offers free replacements.

• Company claims its system hunts down phoning drivers.
• Call of Juarez is heading mobile with Breakpoint.
• Apple says iPhone to access YouTube content.
• French government bans BlackBerrys: fears US and UK spying.

• Narcissistic Blog Disorder and Other Conditions of Online Kookery.
• Could YouTube, PirateBay and file sharing boost 'Sicko'?
• MySpace officially launches instant messaging service.

• Microsoft Will Alter Vista Operating System (registration required).

• DHS Acknowledges Own Computer Break-Ins. Priceless.
• Hackers target 'legitimate' sites.
• Security study pokes holes in advanced authentication claims.
• Google opens up malware blacklist API.

• Dawn of Magic on play.tm.
• DIRT on Game Informer Online and TrustedReviews.
• Enchanted Gardens on GamersInfo.net.

• Akasa Evo Blue AK-922 Heatsink on FrostyTech.
• AMD 690G Motherboard on Driver Heaven.net.
• Antec Nine Hundred ATX Case on ViperLair.
• Antec P182 Case on HEXUS.net.
• BFG 8600GTS OC & BFG 8600GT OC Video Cards on HardwareCanucks.
• CoolIT FreeZone CPU Cooler on Guru3D.
• Cooler Master Stacker 832 Case on techPowerUp.
• Corsair Flash Survivor GT 8GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive on Big Bruin.
• Cyber Snipa Tracer Mouse Pad on GameApex.
• Dell UltraSharp 2707WFP 27" LCD Display on TrustedReviews.
• ECS NF650iSLIT-A nVIDIA nForce 650i Motherboard on PCSTATS.com.
• EVGA nForce 650i Ultra Motherboard on bit-tech.net.
• Goodmans LD2661HDFVT 26" LCD TV on TrustedReviews.
• High-speed DDR2 RAM Roundup on HEXUS.net.
• LG GSA-H55L 20x Super-Multi DVD±RW-RAM on CDRLabs.
• MSI P35 Platinum Motherboard on Hardware Secrets.
• Nexus Frizzbee HDD Cooler on BurnOutPC.
• Noctua NC-U6 Chipset Cooler on Bjorn3d.
• OCZ DDR2 PC2-6400 Reaper RAM on 3dGameMan.com.
• OCZ Reaper HPC PC2-6400 and PC2-8500 2GB RAM on 3DXtreme.
• Razer ProType Keyboard on Overclockers Club.
• Saitek Obsidian (PM20) Mouse on ThinkComputers.
• Ultra X3 1000Watt SLI Ready Modular PSU on Tweaknews.net.
• VIZO Master Panel II Multi-Function 5.25" Panel on Pro-Clockers.

• Roman Battles Lux is a new expansion adding 10 new maps to Lux Deluxe, the Windows and Mac homage to Risk, and the LuxAgent SDK now offers new sample code…
• Wife swap show seeks gaming family…
• GoonSwarm vs. CCP The Battle for EVE Online Continues. Words exchanged between the developer and disgruntled players of their MMORPG…