The QUAKE LIVE website reveals id Software's plans to transition QUAKE LIVE from a browser-based game to a standalone game by the end of this year (thanks nin via Polygon). They explain that changes to how browsers support the kind of plugins their online shooter requires are dictating this move, adding there are benefits to how things will operate this way, but also give the bad news that this spells an end to the game's OS X and Linux support. Here's why:

We will be unable to support Mac and Linux clients with this transition. While we have reports from our testers that the game works through emulation or virtualization software, we are unable to support native Mac and Linux versions. If you’re using Mac and Linux and have a paid subscription, you will only be able to access the game using emulation or virtualization software.

The Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft website is now accepting signups to beta test this upcoming WoW-based virtual card game. The page includes details on the game as well as a FAQ. Here's a gameplay sneak peek trailer and here's a bit from the FAQ explaining the game:

Q: What is Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft?
A: Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is a free-to-play digital collectible strategy card game that anyone can enjoy. Players choose one of nine epic Warcraft® heroes to play as, and then take turns playing cards from their customizable decks. Players are able to cast potent spells, use heroic weapons and abilities, or summon powerful characters to crush their opponent.

Q: Why is Blizzard making Hearthstone?
A: We looooooove collectible card games and have been playing them since our Silicon & Synapse days. Creating a digital strategy card game felt like a natural next step for us, so we put together a small team and have been hammering away at Hearthstone for a while now. This is something we’ve wanted to do for a long time, and we’re excited to be working on something different from our other games. Same goes for creating a game for iPad in addition to PC. It’s been a thrill to work on Hearthstone, and we hope everyone has as much fun playing it as we’ve had building it.

Q: Do I need to know anything about card games or Warcraft to play?
A: Not at all! We’ve designed Hearthstone so that anyone can get into it, no matter how familiar they are with the Warcraft universe or collectible card games. The game will teach you everything you need to know as you play it.

Continue here to read the full story.

• Activate Autumn on GOG.com. Save 60%.
• Portal 2 on Steam. Save 75%.
• Survivor Squad on Steam. Save 25%.
• Total War: ROME II on Steam. Save 25%.

• NukemDukem Interview - True PC Gaming.
• The Girl and The Robot interview - True PC Gaming.

• The Borderlands 2 $100K Loot Hunt Summary: All Good Things Must Come to an End.

• Diablo III: Reaper of Souls Adventure Mode on the official website.

Thanks nin.

• Xbox 360 compatibility on Xbox One using cloud streaming too 'problematic'.
• Forza 5 Has 300 Fewer Cars Than Forza 4, No Nurburgring (Updated).
• Need for Speed Rivals - PlayStation 4 Gameplay footage.
• Need for Speed Rivals - Xbox One Gameplay footage.

• Free Comic Books For Your Kindle.

• Will the global NSA backlash break the internet? Thanks HARDOCP.
• YouTube cofounder breaks 8-year absence on site to gripe about comment policy.
• Amy's Baking Company Owner Calls For End To Reddit. Thanks nin.
• Do you want to pay extra for data- Then Comcast has a deal for you.

• Lenovo sells a record 29 million devices, $9.8 billion in revenue.

• Over 150 million breached records from Adobe hack have surfaced online. Thanks nin.

• Senator wants end to demand letters from “bottom feeder” patent trolls.
• Mom helped hide laptops from FBI in cabinet, gets 6 months probation.

• A Walk in the Dark is now available on Steam, adding 10 additional levels to the game's original 100…
• How A Lifetime Of Heart Disease Birthed Hyper Light Drifter. Thanks nin…
• ‘Borderlands – Tales from the HQ’ animated short film series coming to YouTube this December…

Link of the Day: Track Europe's falling, 2,000-pound satellite in real-time. Thanks brother19.

The World of Warcraft website announces Warlords of Draenor, a fifth expansion for Blizzard's MMORPG that offers new player models, new areas, and new challenges, along with more power to overcome them with an instant upgrade to level 90 for one character on the way to the new level cap of 100. The add-on is playable right now by BlizzCon attendees, but they are not yet projecting a time-frame for it to go live. They offer this announcement trailer, a page with further details, and the following is from the official press release:

Across Draenor's savage jungles and battle-scarred plains, Azeroth's heroes will engage in a mythic conflict involving mystical draenei champions and mighty orc clans, and cross axes with the likes of Grommash Hellscream, Blackhand, and Ner’zhul at the height of their primal power. Players will need to scour this unwelcoming land in search of allies to help build a desperate defense against the old Horde’s formidable engine of conquest—or else watch their own world’s bloody, war-torn history repeat itself.

“Warlords of Draenor gives players a chance to take a commanding role in one of the Warcraft series’ most crucial conflicts,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “This expansion also includes features that make it easy for anyone to jump right into the action, whether they’ve played WoW at some point in the past or are just setting foot in Azeroth for the first time.”

To help new and returning players answer the call to arms on Draenor, the expansion will enable anyone to instantly boost one character to level 90, including a newly created character, quickly getting them up to speed and ready to enjoy the latest content with their friends.

Continue here to read the full story.

A playable demo for Final Exam is now available, offering the opportunity to see if this side-scrolling action game is up to the test. The console editions are available on their respective marketplaces, while the Windows edition is available on Steam, where the full game is also available for purchase. The Final Exam website features a launch trailer for the game, and here's a bit on the demo: "Similar to the full game, the demo version takes on a whole new dimension in Co-op mode. Split your team up to achieve your objectives as quickly as possible or stick together to increase your chances of survival: in Co-op, Final Exam has more explosions and more monsters to guarantee hours of hair-raising gaming thrills! Replay a chapter with your new weapons and skills to improve your score and reach the top of the leaderboards!" Continue here to read the full story.

New version 13.11 beta Catalyst drivers are now available for AMD desktop and mobile accelerators on the AMD support website. The new drivers offer performance improvements and a couple of fixes, including one that addresses a mysterious variance in performance across various brands of their new R9 290 GPUs. They attribute the problem to fan-speed inconsistencies, which they are now addressing, saying the new drivers include a "PowerTune update to reduce variance of fan speed / RPM" on Radeon R9 290 series cards. Thanks HARDOCP.

Desura now offers Chuck's Challenge 3D for Windows, OS X, and Linux, a years-later follow-up to Chip's Challenge. Playable demos are also available, and here's the rundown on all this:

From design genius behind the classic game Chip's Challenge, comes Chuck’s Challenge 3D, a fiendishly addictive puzzler that’s packed with features that will tease the brain and challenge the fingers. It also comes with a level editor that lets you upload and share your levels for everyone to play and rate, all from within the game.

Chuck’s Challenge 3D includes four different game modes:

• PLAY – through 125 levels with your best times published online
• CREATE – your own levels with over 70+ Game Elements & share them with the world
• SEARCH – download levels created by other players
• WEEKLY PUZZLE – play the best user created level of the week

Meet Woop, just your everyday puzzle lovin’ purple alien capable of altering time and space. Woop has summoned all-round puzzle game legend Chuck Sommerville for one purpose - to create a universe of puzzles for him to work his way out of.

• Chris Roberts Details Squadron 42, Takes On Doubters - Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

• Contrast on Blue's News.

• Xbox One - All-in-One Demo Walkthrough.
• Slurpee giving away free Xbox One consoles.
• Hands-on with the Xbox One- Kinect, interface, and OS impressions.
• Xbox One: cloud-based backwards compatibility would be “problematic,” says Penello.
• Microsoft Announces First Wave Of Xbox One Entertainment Apps.
• Wargaming Announces World of Tanks Open Beta Weekend On Xbox Live.
• PS4 - Hadouken Cabs Trailer.
• Xbox One to introduce “media achievements” for watching video. Kinect to verify your ass is planted to the couch.
• Crytek: 'Next-Gen Isn't About Resolution'. It's like we don't even know you anymore!

• Conquering Android’s World of Themes. Thanks Ant via Linux Today.

• Intel Forms Group to Accelerate Internet of Things Market. Thanks HARDOCP.
• It’s not just girls asking “Am I pretty or ugly-” on the Internet.

• Ubuntu 13.10 Hit by Annoying Unity Freezing Bug [Update]. Thanks Ant via Linux Today.

• Data brokers' collection of internet activity data raises privacy issues.
• Snowden may have persuaded 20 to 25 NSA colleagues to give up their passwords.
• NSA spying prompts open TrueCrypt encryption software audit to go viral.
• Report: CIA pays AT&T for international call data.

• Canonical “abused trademark law” to target a site critical of Ubuntu privacy.

• Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs on Gaming-Daddy.
• Battlefield 4 on Technic3D. German.
• Path of Exile on GameSpot.
• The Typing of the Dead: Overkill on Strategy Informer.

• Asrock M8 Mini-ITX Gaming PC on TechSpot.
• ASUS Nexus 7 Gen 2 Android Tablet on TechwareLabs.
• Be Quiet! Dark Power Pro 10 550W CM Semi-Modular Power Supply on eTeknix.
• BitFenix Ronin on techPowerUp.
• ECS GANK DRONE Z87H3-A3X LGA 1150 Motherboard on Mad Shrimps.
• Genius KB-G265 Gaming Keyboard on True PC Gaming.
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti on AnandTech, Benchmark Reviews, eTeknix, Futurelooks, Hardware Asylum, Legit Reviews, Overclockers Club, PC Gamer, and The Tech Report.
• OCZ Vector 150 SSD on AnandTech, Benchmark Reviews, Guru3D, Legit Reviews, ocaholic, PC Perspective, Pure Overclock, Technology X, on TechSpot.
• Raidmax Vampire Case on Overclockers Club.
• Seagate Backup Plus USB 3.0 4TB External Drive on Warp Search.

• Good Game Spawn Point - Series 4 Episode 39. Thanks Ant…
• Minecraft creator Notch appears on US chat show, watch him here…

Normally I might be thinking TGIF right about now, but I have autumn leaf cleanup for not one, but two houses this weekend, which I am looking forward to so much I would have rolled with a couple of extra Monday's this week to forestall the chore just a bit. Oh well, it will be nice when it's all taken care of, except for all the straggling leaves waiting for the ground to be clear before taking the plunge.

Leafy Links:	Thanks Ant and Acleacius.
Play:	Douchebag Beach Club. Crystal Story 2.
Links:	Star Wars- Episode VII to Open December 18, 2015. Thanks nin. Burglar surprised to discover the lady he's robbing is an armed ax-throwing champ -
Stories:	Being bilingual may delay Alzheimer's and boost brain power. FDA Targets Trans Fat in Processed Foods. Hemet Woman Armed With Throwing Ax Chases Thief From Home. Thanks Boing Boing.
Science:	Babies’ eyes may hold early clues about autism. Bizarre six-tailed asteroid dumbfounds scientists.
Media:	Los Santos Psycho (GTA V Machinima). Students mistaking video camera for stills camera. The New Black Gold 2013 - Deus Ex Human Revolution song (Miracle of Sound). Thanks nin.
The Funnies:	xkcd: Substitutions.