So, Blizzcon was this weekend and as I noted yesterday, there weren’t any huge announcements from Blizzard.
Still, here’s a picture of the last Diablo 3 class, the Demon Hunter. And a link to the (cheesy) trailer.
Badass female? check.
Spiky plate armour? check.
High heels? DOH!!!
And of course, in D3, all classes are available as both genders so there will be a male demon hunter too, we just haven’t seen him yet. We can only hope that he gets to totter around in high heels too. (btw this trailer, despite the heels, is way more female friendly than 90% of the stuff you get from other game companies.)
Main announcements were:
- Demon hunter for D3
- PvP arenas will be available in D3. Apparently during the Diablo Q&A they clarified that they don’t plan for Diablo to be an e-sport, so they aren’t aiming to balance all builds.
- Cataclysm to be available digitally so you can download it from Blizzard and have it ready to run on release day.
- Defense of the Ancients style map to be available (free) for SC2, along with other new maps/ minigames. The SC2 DotA is going to use characters from Warcraft and Diablo as well as Starcraft, and sounds like a Big Deal.
Relating to DotA, Blizzard chiefs have commented in interviews that they are talking to Valve about rights to use ‘Defense of the Ancients’ and it sounds as though there is some confusion about who owns what. Doubtless the mod designer does own the name, but it’s true that a lot of people would associate it with Blizzard’s wargames.
Why was the launch of F2P delayed for LOTRO in Europe?
The general manager of Codemasters posted an explanation for the delay in the EU LOTRO forums. As has been widely suspected, it was due to legal/ contractual issues rather than technical ones.
We can confirm the launch is imminent and we should be able to announce the dates later this week/early next week.
I still resent Turbine for going ahead and launching in the US even though they knew these contractual issues had not been resolved. Will certainly bear that in mind in future.
Medal of Honor and Fallout: New Vegas both disappoint
Two big games were released recently but neither has really achieved greatness. Reviewers have not been thrilled and sales back that up.
- Medal of Honor review (Venturebeat)
- Fallout: New Vegas (Common Sense Gamer)
- Fallout: New Vegas (RPS)
Professor Layton to meet Phoenix Wright!
Apparently there is going to be a crossover DS game featuring Professor Layton and Phoenix Wright in a game that is described as a combination of puzzles and crime mystery.
That is just too much awesome for one tiny game cartridge to contain! If it doesn’t get released over here there will be … troub^D^D^D^D^D frantic ordering from overseas and heavy use of any friends who happen to speak Japanese.
Of course, I’d have to actually finish DQ9 first which doesn’t look to be happening any time soon. I was quite impressed that Reggie Fils-Aime claims to have spent 150 hours playing it too.
DDOS attack on Minecraft
How stupid exactly do you have to be to think that the best way to encourage an indie game designer to add more content to his game is to take down his server?
I’m not sure if the source of the DDOS attack has actually been proved but 4chan was mentioned in the link above, where a post was made claiming that the attack came from impatient fans.
I have no words. Tobold had a similar reaction.
EQ2 Servers Merge
SOE announced some server merges this week. These are (of course) subscription servers, which are still kept separate from the EQ2X F2P plebs.
This isn’t really a surprise because it’s been known for ages that the populations on some of those servers has been getting quite low. Whatever server merges may or may not mean for the game, it’s usually a good move for players on those low pop servers when a merger is done.
Player vs Developer comments about what it’s like being on one of the low pop servers that isn’t being merged. In this case, SOE have been reluctant to merge a RP server with a non-RP server, and he’s feeling as though his character has been abandoned.
Welcome to Spinksville! 
The DDOS attack was just… stupid. Some people baffle me.
Oh, and I’m almost ashamed to admit that Phoenix/Layton is enough to make me want the 3DS. That one game alone could sell me on the system.
I’m not ashamed to want the game, oh, no… just that it might be enough to get me to spend that much money.
What Tesh says, even though I’ve played neither before as I don’t have a DS!
Interesting F:NV review by RPS. I have not played it much yet, but it seems to have more humour than FO3.
MMOGC enjoys it a lot, and I also liked the intro sequence and it is all very promising, a bit like more of FO3 plus. I also read in the comments that people are quite divided about the gameplay differences of FO3 and FNV, so far more say it is a bit ahead of FO3 in that regard.
But the bugs…: “there’s a pretty awful bug with Windows 64 bit” … oh… ah… yeah, I wondered why I suddenly had jumping graphics, and this probably also what makes my mouse cursor jump all over the place despite several workarounds and stuff I applied and tried.
The engine used for Fallout 3 worked perfectly with Fallout 3, at least after the latest and final patches. Then they go on and release a game based almost 100% on the same engine and somehow manage to bug it. Now that’s stupid.
Obsidian Entertainment have a reputation from their time as Black Isle Studios, and while FO2 has become a very popular game, it was also a really bugged mess. They always blamed it on little time and being pushed hard by a big company. I don’t believe people that tell me that they have been pushed hard and use it as excuse for their whole professional career. 😛
“SC2 DotA”: For me rather it is a “Gwakos” – “Geeks without any kind of style.” But well, I am apparently not the target group. They should add Superman and Batman as well.
Don’t care much about shooters in general, and Minecraft makes me wonder if this game should not be bought by LEGO and turned into “LEGO Universe Online” = LEGOUO. Which sounds like UO (Ultima Online) + LEGO, which makes the name totally awesome. I never tried Minecraft, for me the looks are just too old.
But this game shows there is a desire for exploring huge worlds, playing together and creating persistant stuff in the world. Our dear MMOs are still mostly wallpaper worlds that allow next to no interaction and creation!
Now let me add the news that were important for me! 😉
* There is a new Klingon cruiser skin, and the Vor’cha now has a T5 variant in STO
* Guild Wars got nice Halloween quests, some new start on Monday, and skimpy costume sales. My Necro now almost look like my WoW succubus, but it is actually a female lich costume, I call it lychee.
Now that describes my current LOTRO mood to a T: I almost forgot about it.
But I will check out the Enedwaith for sure when it goes F2P.
Fallout: NV is a lot more like old school Fallout than Fallout 3 was in terms of flavour. So if that’s what you want, you’ll probably get more mileage out of it than if you’re more a fan of Fallout 3.
Is it wrong of my to hope that Leyton/Wright is actually a marvel vs capcom style fighting game?
Fallout New Vegas is more in check with me than Fallout 3 ever was but as I’ve played only a few hours my judgement will be after I’ve completed the game, not before.
Ironically, I was commenting to my wife this week, to wit: “regardless of how unfriendly the WoW environment can be for female players, at least they don’t have warrior barbies running around in high heels like Tera et al.”
And then came Blizzcon.
Fine, blizz. No more compliments. Dark mutterings are it, now.
besides the initial bugginess in New Vegas, i think its a pretty good game; but if someone was expecting something far better/different than Fallout 3 then i can imagine the disappointment.
Jomu, I think the writing in Fallout New Vegas is far better than that of Fallout 3 and I don’t agree that sales have been poor for FNV – it enter the sales chart at no.1 on release.