Blizzard announces a November 13th release date for Warlords of Draenor, the fifth expansion for World of Warcraft, their long-running MMORPG. Battle.net offers a replay of the live streamed announcement, as well as the Warlords of Draenor opening cinematic. Here's word:

Beyond the Dark Portal, the clash of iron echoes as two worlds brace for war. At a live event in Los Angeles and simulcast at the gamescom trade fair and around the world, Blizzard Entertainment today announced that Warlords of Draenor™, the fifth expansion to its acclaimed massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft®, will be unleashed on November 13, 2014. On that day, players worldwide will begin their march into the perilous wilds of Draenor to face the fury of Grommash Hellscream’s merciless Iron Horde.

“Players will encounter an epic cast of legendary characters and a huge amount of content to explore in Warlords of Draenor”

During today’s event, Blizzard also unveiled the opening cinematic for the expansion, which depicts a pivotal moment in Warcraft history and sets the stage for the coming war. In addition, the company premiered the first episode of Lords of War, a new animated lore miniseries that introduces players to characters central to the expansion’s story — starting with the twisted tale of Kargath Bladefist, legendary leader of the Shattered Hand orc clan. Both videos are available to view now at www.worldofwarcraft.com, and new Lords of War episodes will debut there in the weeks ahead.

Continue here to read the full story.

Steam News announces a free weekend is underway for Sanctum 2 between now and 3:00 pm EDT on Sunday. The tower defense/first-person shooter hybrid is also on sale for the duration of the event for 85% off. Coffee Stain Studios also announces the release of a big new patch for the game "that fixes a lot of stuff" and also adds the Linux and OS X edition of the game to its default branch. Here's the pitch on the game:

Sanctum 2 is the sequel to the world’s first Tower Defense/FPS hybrid game. Pick from four unique character classes and embark on a mission to protect the oxygen-producing Cores from hordes of deadly aliens who are threatened by their existence. Outfit your character exactly the way you want through the new and extensive customization system. Choose your own loadout of towers, weapons and perks, but choose wisely because you are humanity’s last defense against the unrelenting hordes set out to destroy it.

Paradox Interactive announces Cities: Skylines, an urban planning simulation in development at Colossal Order (Cities in Motion) for release next year for Windows, Linux, and OS X. They debuted the project at Gamescom with this reveal trailer, and there are also some screenshots on the game's newly minted official website. Here's the deal:

Paradox and Colossal Order invite players to create the cities of their dreams in Cities: Skylines, a massive city simulator from the creators of the Cities in Motion series. Vast backdrops and maps provide players with countless ways to improve and expand their cities, building from humble beginnings up to beautiful, cloud-hugging structures and unique architectural marvels.

Cities: Skylines will Feature:

• Designed to Impress: Massive map sizes and deep, detailed design controls allow players to construct the cities of their dreams, running everything from road building and zoning to public services and taxation – and, yes, public transportation
• Policy and Progress: Set a series of civic policies to guide the city’s growth; fine-tune the placement and direction of local districts
• Local Beautification: Admire the vastness of your city in a polished visual style and manage a living, breathing city, all the way down to realistic water flow in the irrigation systems
• The Sky is Not the Limit: Strive to build up a city towards jaw-dropping endgame “wonders,” and then go beyond what is possible with built-in game modding tools

Continue here to read the full story.

Steam News heralds the release of new Anniversary Edition Content DLC for Surgeon Simulator 2013, offering some new challenges to the mental medicine game. Here's the prescription: "The super-elite Anniversary Edition add-on contains the new eye and teeth operations that many of you have asked for, additional environments - you’ll now get to try surgery while racing down a hospital corridor, stat tracking, 42 brand new achievements for you to tear your hair out over....and more!"

Here's another new trailer for Assassin's Creed Unity from Gamescom, offering around 11 minutes of gameplay narrated by Alex Amancio, Creative Director on the upcoming stealth/assassination sequel. They say: "Watch 11 minutes of uncut single player Assassin’s Creed Unity gameplay. Narrated by Creative Director Alex Amancio, follow a full single player assassination mission from start to finish and experience the all new immersive gameplay elements. You’ll get a look at the all new parkour system, enhanced stealth, and the beautiful city of Paris all made possible by our all-new next gen engine." Continue here to read the full story.

A new Season Two Episode 4 accolades trailer from The Walking Dead wants us to know what others think of the new installment in Telltales episodic zombie game. These accolades take up the first half of the clip, even though they are all of 25 words, and most of the second half is the game logo, but it does conclude with a tease, saying "Season Finale: No Going Back. Coming Soon." Continue here to read the full story.

• Disciples Of The Storm by Nathan Hunt — Kickstarter. "Disciples of the storm is a fast paced RTS set in a mythical fantasy world of Sonus that has been torn apart by a war of the Gods."

• Awesomenauts on Steam. Save 80%.
• The Darkness II on Steam. Save 80%.
• Kalypso Anniversary Sale on Steam. Save up to 85%.

• Steam Client Update Released.
• Team Fortress 2 updated.

• MCV @ GAMESCOM: Ubisoft vows to improve its PC games.
• Shadow Realms interview: Bioware sending out alpha invites next month - PC Gamer.

• This 'Gamescom Booth Babes' Video Is The Sexist Nadir Of Games Journalism. HuffPo would never link to such trash. No, wait...
• Blizzard Rock the Cabinet Winners Announced.

• There’s no need to “buy outright exclusivity” due to Sony’s strong market position.
• PS4 Share Play restricted to 60-minute sessions.
• Former Xbox program manager- ‘Sorry for all the ads’.
• Assassin's Creed Unity Has A New Feature- Microtransactions.

• Police to citizens- Be careful what you tweet. Thanks HARDOCP.
• Oceans - Street View - Google Maps. Thanks HARDOCP.

• DirectX 12 On Intel At SIGGRAPH 2014.
• AMD hopes to put a little Mantle in OpenGL Next.
• FreeSync monitors will sample next month, start selling next year.
• Cisco slashing up to 6,000 jobs. Thanks Ant via Slashdot.
• Apple CEO Tim Cook, Bill Gates challenged to dump ice water on heads for ALS.
• PC Perspective Podcast #313 - New Kaevri APUs, ASUS ROG Swift G-Sync Monitor, Intel Core M Processors and more.
• Apple Bans Use of 2 Chemicals in iPhone Assembly. Thanks HARDOCP.

Thanks j.c.f.

• Vast majority of hackers believe they're above the law -- survey. Thanks HARDOCP.
• 15 new vulnerabilities reported during router hacking contest.
• Microsoft's Patch Tuesday updates focus on Internet Explorer.
• New Android Malware Krysanec Infects Legitimate Apps.
• Security Holes Exposed In Trend Micro, Websense, Open Source DLP.
• Seven Critical Flash Player Vulnerabilities Fixed in New Version.
• Adobe Reader and Acrobat Zero-Day Vulnerability Patched in 11.0.08.
• Kovter Ransomware Thrives in Q2 2014, Reaches 43,713 Infections in a Single Day.
• iOS Malware Hijacks Revenue from 22 Million Ads.
• New Google Chrome 36 Stable Fixes 12 Vulnerabilities.

• Most Torrented Films, Games, TV By State. Thanks Ant.

• Sacred 2 Gold on GOG.com and Crimsonland on GOG.com…

Link of the Day: 5 Times Robin Williams Was Pretty Much the Best Guy Ever. Thanks Ant.

Stardock announces beta testing of Galactic Civilizations III is now underway for founding supporters of the space strategy sequel, apologizing to those who want in on this that they are still offering the game for $5.00 less than its eventual full price. This trailer accompanies the news, and here's word:

We’ve officially launched the beta! Bells are ringing, birds are singing, and it’s a beautiful day to dig up the archives of a forgotten race’s reality TV shows and use them to placate a restive populace that for some reason doesn’t see the value in mandatory six-month stints working the factories of the nearest forgeworld.

To all of our Founders, thank you so much for your early support. Elite Founders, your feedback and bug reporting has been invaluable in getting Galactic Civilizations III ready for a wider audience. Fire up your Steam client, and it should patch your install to the beta automatically.

To anyone waiting for Galactic Civilizations III to be regular price before diving in, you’ll have to wait a little longer. Sadly, the game is $44.99 during the beta rather than its regular $49.99 price. We beg your forgiveness.

Follow the development of Galactic Civilizations III throughout the beta, ask the team your questions live, and get sneak peeks of upcoming builds every Friday on the official Stardock Twitch channel.

The Galactic Civilizations III beta includes:

Continue here to read the full story.

Battle.net reminds us that today is the day to catch the livestream for World of Warcraft where Blizzard will debut the opening cinematic for the Warlords of Drednor expansion and also reveal the release date for this new expansion for their MMORPG. Here's word on the festivities, which get underway at 12:30 pm EDT:

Don’t forget: this Thursday, August 14, you can witness the world premiere of the Warlords of Draenor cinematic live! Join Blizzard’s Mike Morhaime, Chris Metzen, and World of Warcraft designers Ion Hazzikostas and Brian Holinka for the grand unveiling, streamed live from the Ace Theatre in Los Angeles. But that’s not all—we’ll also host a live interview with the WoW developers, announce the Warlords of Draenor launch date, and debut the first episode of a new animated lore miniseries: Lords of War. You won’t want to miss it!

When: Thursday, August 14 at 9:30 a.m. PDT
Where: Join us here on WorldofWarcraft.com to watch the live stream, or attend* the event live at the Theatre at Ace Hotel, located at 929 South Broadway in Los Angeles. (Doors open at 8:30 a.m.)

Live Attendee Bonus: Anyone who joins us live and in person in L.A. will also receive a beta key for Warlords of Draenor.**

*Please note: World of Warcraft is rated T for Teen; some content on display at the event may not be suitable for children ages of 12 or younger. Anyone 12 years of age or under must be accompanied by an adult.

**Doors open at 8:30 a.m. Seating is limited and will be available on a first-come, first-served basis, so be sure to get there early! Beta keys will be given out to everyone who comes down for the live event.

The Witcher website has a new trailer showing off the setting of The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt, CD Projekt RED's action/RPG sequel. Word is: "From the murky reaches of No Man’s Land to the harsh climate of the Skellige Islands, to the vibrant metropolitan of the north, Novigrad--behold, the gritty and diverse universe of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt." A high-end look at the game's graphics can be found in another new clip on Gamersyde (thanks DSOGaming) where there's a clip with uncompressed graphics that's a 1.3 GB download. Continue here to read the full story.

The roguish sorts at Ubisoft now offer a couple of new trailers from Assassin's Creed Unity for our viewing pleasure. The UbiBlog has an Arctic Naval Gameplay Walkthrough trailer which shows one of the game's less probable environments, saying: "In the North Atlantic seas sheets of ice offer new areas for exploration, but also new threats and challenges to your sailing abilities. And as if the ice and seas themselves didn't offer enough danger you’ll be faced with cunning enemies using new tactics to send you to a frozen grave." They also have a river valley land gameplay walkthrough trailer they describe thusly: "In this walkthrough commented by Game Director Martin Capel, you’ll learn about naval gameplay in the river valley and get a look at Shay’s new weapons and abilities like the deadly air rifle and its various types of ammunition and Shay’s “Eagle Sense” which allows him to locate, avoid, or eliminate Assassins lurking in the shadows." Continue here to read the full story.

WIRED Game-Life - Final Fantasy Isn’t Dying. It’s Already Dead. Stick a FFork in it. Thanks Ant.
What inspiration, if any, will breast-jiggling simulator Lightning Returns pass down to a new generation of game creators? Somewhere along the line, Final Fantasy lost the plot. Original creator Hironobu Sakaguchi is long gone, and if he attempted to pass the torch to a new generation they dropped it, let it go out in the dirt and kept running anyway. The 2001 game Final Fantasy X wasn’t that bad, but the next game after that, the awkwardly-named Final Fantasy X-2, decided that what the series needed was to take all the female player characters, give them skimpier outfits and make them into J-pop stars.

• Battlefield 4 ESL One Summer Finals at Gamescom.

• Gamescom 2014: Microsoft Caught Using – Once Again – PCs To Showcase Its Xbox One Games.
• 'Not Every Game Should Be 1080p' Says Xbox Head Phil Spencer.
• Phil Spencer says ‘framerate is significantly more important than resolution.’.
• The Crew won't release on PS3 and Wii U due to different "technical infrastructure".
• Project Morpheus Support Coming To War Thunder On PlayStation 4.
• Why Madden Sucks. NSFW. You had me at Cardinals and Browns in the Super Bowl. Thanks Ant.

• The Most Popular Computing Device Has Yet to Be Invented: The 15-Inch Tablet.
• Activision has 'no plans' to sell Skylanders Trap Team controller separately.
• 2K Unveils WWE® SuperCard for Mobile Devices.
• Man stabbed in heart after bumping strangers while texting. Thanks HARDOCP. I don't get mad. I get stabby.
• Super Smash Bros. 3DS XL bundle introduced for Europe.

• Here’s another Comcast cancellation horror story, with video evidence.
• Over 4,000 BuzzFeed Posts Have Completely Disappeared.

• Risen 3: Titan Lords – PC Performance Analysis.
• Razer Announces Chroma Keyboard, Mouse, and Headset.
• Trading robots 'cause stock market tsunamis'. Thanks HARDOCP.

• A portable router that conceals your Internet traffic.
• Meet MonsterMind, the NSA Bot That Could Wage Cyberwar Autonomously. Anonymous vs. Autonomous? Thanks Acleacius.
• Facebook to Track Users Across Devices to Study Shopping Habits. Thanks HARDOCP.

• Firefall on Zero Punctuation. NSFW.
• Hyphen on Christ Centered Gamer.
• King's Bounty: Dark Side on Strategy Informer.
• McDroid on Strategy Informer.
• Risen 3: Titan Lords on Game Over Online.
• The Wolf Among Us on Game Over Online.

• Bem Wireless Bluetooth Speaker Band on Testfreaks.
• CHIL PowerShare Reactor 5.1 Amp Multi-Device Charger on Nikk Tech.
• DeepCool Steam Castle mATX Chassis on eTeknix.
• Gigabyte Z97X Gaming G1 Motherboard on Hardware Asylum.
• LUXA2 EnerG 6600mAh Portable Battery Bank on TweakTown.
• MSI Devils Canyon Roundup on LAN OC.
• OCZ ARC 100 Series 240GB SSD on HardwareHeaven, Legion Hardware, Legit Reviews, Neoseeker, and TweakTown.
• Phanteks Enthoo Pro on techPowerUp.
• Plextor M6s 256GB SSD on Hardware Canucks.
• Sapphire Tri-X R9-290X on Vortez.

• Nexon Announces Second Quarter 2014 Results…
• World of Warcraft Robin Williams petition receives "assurance from Blizzard employees that our desire for a Robin Williams tribute and or NPC will be handled with great care."…
• 17-year-old secret message found in Dungeon Keeper code. Missed this at the time. Thanks HARDOCP…
• Skyrim Voted #1 Game (of All Time) Down Under…
• Valve Trip - Saxxy 2013. Thanks Ant…

Apparently Major League Baseball will select a new commissioner today. It may be a little late to start campaigning, but I promise if I'm elected to do a fine old job. I can't claim to be impartial, but since the current commissioner was previously a team owner, a conflict-of-interest is obviously not a deal breaker here. Besides, anyone familiar with the New York Mets knows that they'd still struggle mightily even if the fix was in. Vote Blue!

Links:	Thanks Ant and Acleacius.
Play:	Black IV: Time of Revenge. Clash of Goblins. Shadow Kings.
Links:	Top 10 Lefties. Missed International Left-Handers Day yesterday. A look at the Jedi beard 'contractually' forced onto Mark Hamill's face. 6 Artists Whose Weird Fetishes Defined Pop Culture.
Stories:	Pilot's artificial arm 'became detached while landing plane'. Guide dogs and guns- America's blind gunmen. Thanks Digg.
Science:	The downside of high school science requirements- More dropouts.
Media:	Commander Shepard: A Dramatic Reading By Commander Shepard Herself. Foreign Foods You’re Eating Wrong. Fully Automatic Assault Rifle at 18,000fps.
The Funnies:	The Undeniable Link Between Videogames and Violence.