Channel 10

Test Driving The Zune In-Car Kit

sarahintampa — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:54:00 GMT

If you’re a Zune owner, then you’ll want to check out the review over on Ian Moulster’s blog about his personal experiences with the Zune In-Car Kit. Ian said his past experiences with these types of FM Transmitters didn’t have him feeling too hopeful about how the Zune Kit would work out for him. However, he ended up being surprised by the performance and the number of features it offered. One of the best features of the kit was how it used RDS to display the track and artist information on the radio – when your kit is connected, the display reads “Zune," and when a song starts playing it will display artist and track info. That’s pretty cool – my in-car kit doesn’t even do that. Ian was also happy to report that the reception ended up being a lot better than he expected thanks to the wire from the cigarette lighter which also acts as an antenna. Although he didn’t provide a link to the device, based on the photos provided, it looks like he was talking about this kit, which, at $69.99, is about $30 cheaper than the last kit I purchased myself.

Remote Gaming: Play YOUR Xbox from anywhere in the world!

Laura — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:51:00 GMT

Imagine...you are on a trip to Yawnsville, USA and you find yourself bored in your hotel room. Wouldn't it be GREAT if you just had your 360 with you and you could finish that level in Dead Space? Well, Vircion is going to make that possible. With their new product called Sero- you can tap into your console at home and access all your media and games with just a regular internet connection. You'll be able to finish that game you were playing and even jump into an online game and play with friends. No matter where you go- your 360 won't be far :)

Using Games To Teach: G4LI Unveiled

sarahintampa — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:59:00 GMT

Microsoft is teaming up with a handful of universities to study if and how computer games can be useful in education for teaching students math, science, and technology. The research project has Microsoft working with NYU as well as City University of New York, Columbia University, Dartmouth College, Parsons the New School for Design, and the Rochester Institute of Technology. Columbia’s Teachers College and NYU’s Polytechnic Institute. The test subjects in this study will be middle school students.

Why middle school? According to Ken Perlin, an NYU professor of computer science, in middle school many students “become discouraged or uninterested and pour their time at home into gaming. We think gaming is our starting point to draw them into math, science, and technology-based programs.”

The research study will be called the “Games for Learning Institute.” The budget is $3 million. Microsoft will be paying half with the universities chipping in for the other portion. The study hopes to discover what makes games compelling and playable and what elements make them effective for learning…that is, even they are effective for learning. The games used in testing will be deployed along with curricula to 19 NYC area schools where results in the classroom will be tracked. (via Wired Campus)

Xberry Live! Brings Xbox To The Blackberry

sarahintampa — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:59:00 GMT

The combination of a gaming platform (Xbox) and the phone used by a large number of business professionals worldwide (Blackberry) seems somewhat of an unlikely combination, but I suppose that, in recent years, the Blackberry has branched out to be more of a consumer device. The consumer adoption of Blackberry must be the explanation for the Blackberry app Xberry Live, which was recently profiled on the Crackberry website. This app lets you see which of your friends are online, what they’re playing, and what games they’ve recently played. The app will display your friends list but also lets you add anyone with an Xbox Live Gamer tag. Xberry Live is still in beta at the moment and works on Blackberry phones running OS version 4.2.1 and up including the 81xx, 83xx, 87xx, 88xx, and 9000 models. You can download the app directly from here: http://jxl.me/xberry/xberrylive.jad

Blizzcon 08: Frank Pearce on random instances, Wow Mobile and more

Sampy — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 02:58:00 GMT

Channel 10 interviewed Frank Pearce, Executive Vice President of Product Development for Blizzard Entertainment on what's coming after Wrath of the Lich King, random instances in Wow, Wow outside of Wow, class balance, destructible cities, armor dyes, and more.

Note: Due to the audio quality, the transcript of this interview is included below.

Transcript

Channel 10: We're here, Channel 10 with Frank Pearce, Frank, why don't you quickly introduce yourself?

Frank Pearce: Sure, my name is Frank Pearce; I'm an Executive Vice President of Product Development for Blizzard Entertainment.

C10: We've been looking at the Blizzcon announcements, what are some of your favorite features, what are the things that didn't make it into Wrath of the Lich King that you all are talking about for, say, future content packs?

FP: Wow, the laundry list is pretty long; at the top of my list personally is improved guild support. The little guild window we have to manage a list of 500 names has grown infeasible. So, one example for me would be better guild features, but we have a big laundry list, we want to continue the storyline, there's more stuff that we want to tell as far as the story goes, we've got different options there. We actually, after we ship Wrath, we'll get the development team together, take a step back, and brainstorm some of the features that everyone is thinking about so we can lock down the feature set for the next expansion.

C10: There's been a number of announcements around Diablo 3, random instances, adventures, and we see the Diablo 3 team talking about some of the features that they borrowed from World of Warcraft. For World of Warcraft players, are there going to be, say, random instances or random encounters, or random zones where the zones could change...

[Video breaks as Frank's phone rings]

C10: Random instances or random areas, anything that you see borrowing from the Diablo world, or maybe even destructible things where your spells could actually destroy things, people seem to love that.

FP: Blowing sh*t up is always fun (laughter). Random instances is something that came up as a potential for something that we'd do in a future expansion. It really depends on the guys that put together the raid dungeons and the five-man dungeons handcraft those to make sure the experience is of a specific level of quality so it's something that we'll have to evaluate whether we can deliver the experience when it's random versus hand crafted.

C10: In February 2008 a number of people got really excited when you started talking about Warcraft outside of Warcraft, specifically it was an interview you had done on Warcraft Mobile.

FP: That was at Dice (laughter).

C10: So what things can you talk about, are you all working on Warcraft Mobile and what's the current situation and I've got some follow up questions on that.

FP: Okay, yeah, we'd like to be able to some stuff with Mobile devices, we don't have any development resources in house devoted to that as of yet, but we are looking for Mobile developers so we can start to go down that path. You know I mean the laundry list of things we could potentially do is pretty long, the things that I think would be pretty cool include like character profiles or being able to view your in-game mail, view your auctions, or guild chat, stuff like that. We're not talking about Mobile in the context of creating mobile games but as you mentioned in the context of enhancing the existing game experience that we've delivered to our players.

C10: A lot of people love some of the new stuff you all are doing on the Web site, having armory, having my guild, being able to look up what the latest stats and changes (to characters) and really supporting the community as well by making that available as XML and sites like SK-Gaming that do regular polls (of the armory). Are you all looking to add Guild Calendar to the Web which is a classic thing where you're organizing people...

FP: We've got guild calendar slated for, yeah, it's in the Lich King...

C10: But outside the game, meaning through the Web site.

FP: Definitely something that we're talking about, when we would be able to launch that depends on the resources available on the Web team as they have a lot of stuff going on. If you go up to the Armory, it's still listed as being in Beta (laughter); it's been live for a while. It's definitely a really cool idea and definitely something that we'll want to do at some point.

C10: The other ones, just to rattle these off are presence - so you can actually see when your friends are online and actually see which of my guild mates are online without having to log into the game.

FP: From the Web and/or mobile?

C10: Yeah.

FP: That would cool. Friends list.

C10: Yes.

FP: I can dig that.

C10: And achievements, which is another thing you see in like say Xbox where you have your, you know your "bragging card".

FP: Yeah achievements on Mobile and Web is another really good idea too.

C10: Okay, so it's something you all are...?

FP: So I'll point the designers to this interview (laughter).

C10: And actually you had mentioned in-game mail as well (on mobile). So there's always discussion on class balance, and I think there's always fights, but the reality is that when you all build those, when you try and do that, you all use spreadsheets, is that correct? You have actual math, it's not throwing darts.

FP: Yeah, yeah, there are spreadsheets behind it, the balance designers have mathematical backgrounds, more of the hard science backgrounds compared to the creative backgrounds, which you'll see in a lot of the designers that are doing lore and quests and stuff. Yeah, we definitely have guys on it full time and that's why we're always iterating on it, there job is to make sure that the classes are well balanced and not just well balanced but also viable in all of the different gaming experiences that we provide whether its outdoor PVE or raiding or battlegrounds PVP or arena PVP and they are committed to making sure that all of the classes are balanced and viable. It's an iterative process and fortunately WoW is an online experience that gives us the luxury of being able to iterate pretty frequently.

C10: Right and you know a lot of people say or argue about, say my class doesn't do enough damage. Have you all looked at or considered releasing some of those numbers in some way that is digestible, so you're not, a number of people are taking the target dummies in the beta to do damage calculations for spells. Sort of helping the hardcore gamers that really want that in-game data or to respond to people that are saying we don't have enough damage when the reality is that you all have calculated it and you have, in fact balanced the classes.

FP: I think even if we provided those spreadsheets and some more concrete numbers, I think at the end of the day it would still be subjective right, since at some point someone's going to have to make an argument about whether a hunter should have higher DPS than a rogue or vice versa and under what circumstances that should be. So even if we gave them concrete data I still think that there would be a lot of people out there going with their theory craft arguments and it's probably more controversy then we're interested in creating.

C10: I don't know if there could be more controversy (laughter).

FP: You'd be surprised.

C10: PVP, you all added the Havoc physics engine to Diablo and we've seen some of the destructible things in Wintergrasp, are you all looking to either revisit old content to get World PVP going? This is another thing where people remember the Tarren Mill battles, are you all doing anything to make it so that you could actually have siege weapons destroy Stormwind for example?

FP: It's something that we'll probably want to take a look at after we've seen how Wintergrasp plays out because Wintergrasp is the PVP zone in Wrath of the Lich King that's going to have siege weapons and destructible buildings and so once we see how that plays out and we see how fun that is and seeing what kind of popularity it has we'll look at whether or not we want to do something like that. It's definitely a cool and ambitious idea.

C10: Speaking of Lake Wintergrasp this is one of the things where people love to be in Alterac Valley and there were a number of things learned from that and even the addition of destruction with destructible objects and buildings and siege weapons, the only thing is it seems to be only a limited time. In other words you have 40 minutes to take Lake Wintergrasp and then you can't take it again (for 2.5 hours). What was the reasoning behind sort of making it that versus just having it, you know the people that love PVP and just stay in there and continuously battle? It seems to go more PVE once it's captured.

FP: You asked a really specific question that I wouldn't be able to do justice by even trying to answer. Tom Chilton is the game systems designer and he's got a big focus on PVP and maybe we can have you guys follow up with Shon afterwards and get you some answers to that via email or even later in the show. I don't want to butcher the answer as that's pretty specific.

C10: The last question is armor dyes are you all thinking of
even potentially doing just simple stuff with the tier sets so the Paladin's who don't like pink for example could dye it maybe, darker red.

FP: Yeah that's definitely something that comes up in discussion periodically. There's arguments for both sides of it. Right now we're sitting on the side of the fence that says that we want the tier x armor set to be very distinguishable. We don't necessarily want people changing the color palette of it, but it's definitely something that comes up as a discussion topic and we'll have to see.

C10: Okay, excellent thanks.

FP: Thank you.

Smart Driving 10 Years Out

Larry — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 16:34:00 GMT

Autoblog has a post about a new Audi dash system called Travolution that establishes communication between your car and traffic lights. The system will tell you what speed you need to maintain so you don't have to stop at the light, and no braking means better gas mileage and reduced emissions. Currently the pilot program is only running in Ingostadt, Germany.

The system requires a module retrofit on the traffic light to communicate with the dash system, so don't look for this in the short term, but as more cars arrive with in-dash computers (like Microsoft Sync) the possibility is only a software update away. What would be even better is a two-way communication system so that a traffic light can understand which side of the light is backed up the most and help alleviate some of that congestion and intelligently synchronizing with other traffic lights.

RoboChamps Update!

Tina — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 16:03:00 GMT

Today, Microsoft officially launched the Urban Challenge, sponsored by KIA Motors. KIA's sponsorship has taken RoboChamps to a brand new level - both in realism and in terms of prizes.

KIA has been very generous with models of their cars and buildings. This enables us to provide additional realism in the environment, as you will have the opportunity to choose one of 5 robot cars based on real KIA models.You'll program these cars to navigate a course through a large city, that comes complete with other moving cars, video billboards and working traffic lights. You car is loaded up with a number of sensors to help you achieve your goal, including multiple cameras, a laser rangefinder, bumpers, and a GPS unit.

We're also announcing that KIA's sponsorship is providing the largest prizes in the history of RoboChamps. Participants will be competing to win prizes including $5000, $10,000, and even a real car!

This video provides an overview of the new competition, with video of what you can expect in the simulation environment.

For additional details, check out the RoboChamps website (www.robochamps.com)

Silverlight 2: Get It Now

sarahintampa — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:16:00 GMT

You probably caught the news about the availability of the newest version of the Silverlight plugin: Silverlight2. Thanks to some high profile efforts, like the Microsoft-NBC partnership on the Olympics website for example, Silverlight is now installed on 1 in 4 of PCs worldwide.

If you haven’t already installed Silverlight on your PC, Microsoft and their partners will soon unveil a number of other websites which may compel you to do so. One of the new websites which will feature Silverlight is the CBS College Sports Network, which will stream 20,000 hours of live games for over 150 universities. AOL will also reveal their new AOL Mail browser (see image to left). That sleek new rich-internet app was teased at this year’s MIX08 conference, if you remember. In addition, Yahoo! Japan is now live streaming Major League Baseball games, Hard Rock International will update their memorabilia site with new features, and other companies like Toyota, HSN, and others will be launching this week, too. In other words, 1 in 4 is just the beginning.

I have to admit the big selling point for me is that Silverlight actually works in the Firefox browser. Flash does not, which is irking me, too, Rafe.

Motorola’s New Dashboard Computer

sarahintampa — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:16:00 GMT

Motorola has just introduced a new dash-mounted mobile computer, the VC6096. Running Windows Mobile 6, this computer is designed specifically for work-related applications like those used for fleet management or vehicle tracking systems, for example. Another use for the device would be in emergency and police vehicles. Currently, the systems used in those vehicles tend to run Windows XP, XP Embedded, or Windows CE.

With its wireless LAN (WLAN) capabilities, the device can be easily integrated with a company’s existing WLAN for real-time visibility of the vehicle. In addition, its 3.5 G GSM HSDPA WWAN allows for simultaneous voice and data and the bandwidth to support even data-intensive applications. Because of the VC6096’s open platform, any number of applications can be installed on the device to support whatever your business needs.

Here are the full specs:

The new VC606 device is 9.53" x 9.25" x 1.95" with a 6.5" VGA touchscreen. It can be connected to an SAE J1708 or SAE J1939 telematics bus to work in tandem with fleet management or vehicle tracking systems, and has a SiRFstarIII GsC3ef/LP GPS chipset, GSM HSDPA, 802.11 a/b/g, and Bluetooth 2.0. Its wireless LAN supports WPA2, WEP (40 or 128 bit), TKIP, TLS, TTLS (MS-CHAP), TTLS (MS-CHAP v2), TTLS (CHAP), TTLS-MD5, TTLS-PAP, PEAP-TLS, PEAP (MS-CHAP v2), AES, and LEAP.

{You Shape} it: A New Site Filled With Silverlight Goodness

sarahintampa — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:16:00 GMT

Thanks to frankarr, I’ve just discovered another cool website that’s a great example of Silverlight in action. Called {You shape} it, the site is a Microsoft property whose focus is design, development and IT management. Frank says that site reminds him of Dreamworks’ The Neverhood because of its use of claymation. I hadn’t ever heard of that one, but I thought the claymation controls for the video player were a nice touch. However, I really got a kick out of the claymation-styled screensavers – especially the second one where balls of clay roll onto the screen then morph into shapes, objects, and other crazy characters. That’s not to say there isn’t valuable info on the site about design, IT, and development – there’s quite a lot of info, actually, in those corresponding sections (see links above), I just got distracted by the cool claymation transitions between the pages!

Blizzcon Costume, Silly, & Dance contest winners

Dan — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 12:28:00 GMT

At Blizzcon 2008, attendees get a chance to win fabulous prizes (like a Frostmourne sword) by dressing up in costumes, thinking up witty one-liners, and of course busting a move in the dance contest. Check out this year's winners:

Costume Contest
Third Place: Alexander Gross, Tyrael
Second Place: Thrall, orc chieftain
First Place: Amanda Hoster, female shaman riding turtle mount

/Silly Contest
Third Place: Steven Ross
Second Place: Steve Morales
First Place: James Taplin

Dance Contest
Third Place: Vincent Lewis, ogre/moonkin
Second Place: Edwin Jung, troll male
First Place: Katie Stirman, undead female

/web: Microsoft’s New Site For Web Professionals

sarahintampa — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 22:22:00 GMT

The newly launched /web is a site where web professionals can find articles, events, and relevant info from all over the internet - not just Microsoft.com pages. There are different categories to explore, including the following areas: inspiration, methods, business, events, blogs, and products, each with their own RSS feed. The categories can also be found at the top of the home page for easy browsing. An Editor's Picks section selects some of the most popular and interesting content and there’s an RSS feed for that section, too. I’m not even a web professional, but I’ve already found some great content on the site, including this article on Drupal, this one on Ubiquity, and this one on social networking.

U Rank: A Social Search Experiment From Microsoft Research

sarahintampa — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 04:56:00 GMT

A new project from Microsoft Research (who by the way, is doing the coolest things these days), is a social search experiment called U Rank. The current U Rank prototype is a social search engine built on Live Search that lets you organize, edit, and annotate your search results as well as share them with others.

Essentially, the way U Rank works is by letting you move the search results around – either higher or lower using drag-and-drop while also optionally adding notes to the results or deleting them entirely. In other words, you can create the perfect, personalized search results instead of relying on an algorithm to do it for you.

This could be a great tool for research purposes as you could keep lists of search results along with meaningful notes about the sites you visited. It could also be a better alternative to bookmarking – a process that could become overwhelming if you’re researching a large topic and saving numerous pages. Instead of having to tag bookmarks individually, you could just save your search results themselves. That list could then be shared with other friends, colleagues, or anyone else who might be interested in your findings.

Because the site is just a prototype, participation requires you register your existing Windows Live ID in order to test it out. At the moment, the site is a little slow, but throw some more power behind it and you could really have something here.

New From Live Labs: Political Streams

sarahintampa — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 04:56:00 GMT

The Live Labs team has just released a new project, Political Streams, and just in time as the U.S. Presidential election draws near. The site mines social media from across the internet, including blogs, newsgroups, and web sites, in order to track what stories are popular and if that popularity is increasing or decreasing.

When you click into an article on Political Streams, you’ll see a snippet of text from the article’s start and a link to the source if you’re interested in reading the complete story. Beneath this text are charts and graphs that show the attention the people and places mentioned in that particular story have seen over time. On the right, you’ll also see links to related information like other articles on news sites and blogs as well as links to people and places. Those people and places are generated by leveraging the API from the online open database project, Freebase.

The Political Streams site was built on the Social Streams platform, a platform that mines the social web for data. BLEWS, an earlier project by Microsoft Research, was also built on this platform.

Surface DJ

sarahintampa — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 04:56:00 GMT

Surface DJ is a killer app for Microsoft Surface which lets techo-loving DJs - or even wannabe DJs - work together to create songs using a Mixer-type application. As the DJs move objects into a specific area of the Microsoft Surface screen, different sounds are played. Or maybe I shouldn’t say “sounds,” because sounds alone weren’t enough for this app’s creators. That’s why Vectorform, the company behind the app, added in musical loops, too. Of course, the app is designed to take advantage of the Surface computer’s multi-touch capabilities since it lets multiple DJs work together to build a musical creation at the same time.

Want to see it in action? Check out this video:

Gigs in Gaming: Part II

Laura — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 21:29:00 GMT

Every gamers dream is to eventually work in the gaming industry. Wouldn't it be great to help concept and build the games you get to play? Well, if that's your goal then getting a college degree in game design is a step in the right direction. Bellevue University is one of the schools that offer this program. The great thing about Bellevue is that if you don't feel like picking up and moving to Nashville, Tennessee- you don't have to! Bellevue University’s Bachelor of Science in Gaming and Simulation degree is a professional-level degree completion program offered completely online. Watch this clip for more details on gigs in gaming.

BlizzCon 08: Diablo III Class Design Panel

Sampy — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 13:08:00 GMT

One of the first panels I attended was the Diablo III Class Design talk featuring Jay Wilson and other members of the D3 team. We had just witnessed the unveiling of the brand spankin' new Wizard class so this panel promised to give us a sneak peak behind the newest defender of Sanctuary as well as other behind the scenes information. They talked about the skill system and how animations and graphics feed back into making a class shine.

The D3 designers want to give players that glass cannon that so many of them love. Sure it can blow things to pieces but get in their face and they aren't exactly the sturdiest of heroes. The Wizard is for that player who looks at the character selection screen and says, "I want to blow stuff up." For those Diablo 2 fans out there, this is an iteration on the fan favorite Sorceress class but with a different focus. Rather than summoning the elemental powers of Fire, Ice, and Lightning, a Wizard uses what Blizzard is calling "High Magic." This involves channeling the raw forces of the universe. The designers described the powers warping the laws of physics, weather control, and even time control to lay waste to foes. They even went into detail of the history of the Wizard. "She didn't study for her Conjuration class... but she aced it," one developer joked. "Her teachers said, 'Don't study that, it's forbidden.' So she said, 'That's what I want to learn.' We'll have to see if that gets her into trouble down the line." Take a look at how she looks in the preview video and you can see how this plays into character design.

They showed off a few skills for the Wizard. Magic Missile, a fantasy classic and very useful for shooting into the darkness, is the first spell a Wizard uses. In raw numbers terms, it's not much different than a Fireball or Ice Bolt but the designers explained that even a simple choice like this has design implications down the road. Players expect a Fireball spell to upgrade into burning damage or an explosion, an Ice Bolt slowing foes or freezing them. A Magic Missile, however, fires more and more bolts as it increases in power or starts homing in on targets. By starting from here, more skills start to come into view as the design evolves.

The other Wizard skills detailed were:
Electrocute - Part of the weather control power set, it's like a beefed up Chain Lightning spell that bounces electricity from target to target.
Slow Time - This is the bubble that the Wizard uses in the preview video. Time control isn't something you see often in RPG games, especially multiplayer. They originally wanted the slow to be gamewide but the implications for multiplayer seemed pretty un-fun. As it stands, it's a great defensive power that really makes the Wizard feel powerful.
Disintegrate - Another pen and paper RPG classic, this powerful spell rarely makes it into computer RPGs. It began it's life as a Barbarian skill called great swing. The idea was for the player to hold down the mouse button and build up a big attack. For the barbarian though, it ended up not being very fun. Monsters would shoot the player from range, well meaning friends would kill the foe before he got too close, etc. On the Wizard, however, holding down the button and sweeping firey death across the battlefield is pretty fun. As the spell hits a single target, it "heats up" doing more and more damage.

The next bit of the panel was about the skill system. They went through a ton of iterations. I chose one of the craziest above to show you that they really considered everything. They have a saying at Blizzard though, "Different but worse isn't better, better is better." This brought them back to something a little closer to those who've played Diablo II. Check it out:

On the left of each tier, you can see active skills. These are just like the kind of abilities you spend points on in Diablo II. To the right, you can see passive skills that allow you to beef up your abilities without adding too many actions to your bar. They want to keep that Diablo feel of fast clicking action rather than something like World of Warcraft where you need at least a dozen skills. Now what are those little circles under the active skills you ask? Why, those are Rune slots of course!

For those who can remember way back to the original Diablo, skills dropped from books. They liked the way this mirrored the random drop feel of items but it was too random. Runes are a middle ground between D1 and D2. The runes aren't class specific and can be put in any skill. The trick is that each skill changes differently depending on what rune you put into it. A lethality rune makes Electrocute cause foes it kills to explode and damage everything around it. Also as pointed out many times, explosions are cool; cheers showed that they were right when they said, "we have our finger on the pulse of the Diablo community." Multi-strike causes the Witch Doctor's Flame Skull to skip across the ground before exploding and the Wizard's teleport spell to create duplicates of the caster to confuse foes.

After covering classes, the technical effects designer talked a bit about player skills and monster deaths. Each class has their own feel: Barbarians display great physical power, Witch Doctor's use various voodoo items and swarms to damage foes, and the Wizard was described in two words: Light Show. All of these help add a visceral feel to playing Diablo. Of course one of the best parts of Diablo is watching hordes of monsters die before you. They added basic physics to monsters so they would fall as they were cut down but didn't stop there. Critcial deaths can occur with crushing swings, exploding with blood. Different damage types leave monsters in pieces or glowing with purple energy. Disintegrate leaves nothing behind and swarm leave only bones. All of this plays into the fun of Diablo: battling the minions of the Lord of Terror and mowing down his hordes.

All in all, Diablo III is looking like a great edition to the Diablo series. It still looks a ways off at this point but what I've seen so far makes me quite excited.

Are you excited about Diablo III? What class are you going to play? Let us know what you think!

Guitar Hero: World Tour up close and personal-like

MaxPowerhouse7 — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 20:32:00 GMT

I’ve been sitting on this one for a little bit until closer to launch… that’s right, it’s almost Guitar Hero: World Tour time (October 26th to be exact).

“But Max, I already have Rock Band… what’s the big deal with this?!?” I don’t know which one is better yet, but based on what Brandon told me about the track editor where you can make your own instrument tracks for your own songs and share them online, this might be the killer “must have” feature of the video-console-rockin’-out-style-games. I also really liked the symbol additions to the drums, the pressure sensitivity, and not mentioned is the ability to use the drum header to plug in a real electronic drum set to rock out in some real style………… ohhh man I must do that!

So here’s the question ladies and lads: are the new features of Guitar Hero: World Tour compelling enough to get you Rock Band owners to buy another set, or did you all just wait for this game anyway??

BlizzCon 08: Sampy and Dan at the show!

Sampy — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:54:00 GMT

Hey all you PC gamers out there, didn't get tickets to BlizzCon? Don't have DirectTV Pay Per View? Don't worry! Dan and I are on the case!

We're here right now in the BlizzCon convention hall recording and blogging the even just for you (well, and Channel 9 too). We just witnessed the opening ceremonies with Blizzard's Mike Mordheim kicking things off. He showed off the Wrath of the Lich King opening cinematic on the big screen as well as revealed the third Diablo III playable class: the Wizard!

We'll be taking lots of video and pictures of panels and fans and pushing them up as soon as we can tear ourselves away from the action. Stay tuned!

Gigs in Gaming: Part I

Laura — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:11:00 GMT

The gaming industry is so vast and diverse, and people are always asking what is the best way to get their foot in the door. There are tons of positions you'd never think of and a few that should pop into mind immediately. The obvious method would be : you want a job in gaming? Then make games! Hero Engine is offering one of the most sophisticated and complete development tools for building an amazing online experience. Bioware has even selected Hero Engine as the tool to build their next MMO. Check out what they're offering and see if this could work for you. And check back for more ways to get Gigs in Gaming.