• 1Up
• Gamepro

Also if you by the November of Computer Gaming Online... you'll find another one.

Oh, did I mention there's also a new SC:Ghost Wallpaper?

• The Caverns of time are opened, allowing players to battle Archimonde, save Thrall, and witness Medivh opening the dark portal.
• Auction houses will be linked.

Suffice to say, it's well worth reading.

Gamespy has posted a two page preview on Starcraft:Ghost, so what's the verdict?

So after an intense, but short session, I got to thinking. StarCraft: Ghost is one of those games that has been in development for what seems like an eternity. I've got every confidence in Blizzard not to release a sub-standard game -- World of Warcraft remains high on my personal list of all-time favorites -- so my question is this. Will gamers still care about StarCraft: Ghost after such a long time?

Yup. Zerg are playable, and they also think its cool.

• Six classes are available to the Blood Elves, including priests, mages, warlocks, warriors, hunters, and rogues
• They didn't notice many recycled character models.
• Blood Elves have too racial abilities, Mana Tap to instantly drain enemy mana and place an arcane buff on themselves, stackable up to 10 times.
• Convert the Arcane Buffs into mana, energy or rage.

The raciali ability sounds overpowering... but, anyway, read the preview.

What I am really curious about is how itemisation will work, now that all those epics people got at Level 60 may not be better than blues that require Level 65. Hopefully Narc or Petedunville will provide the answers tommorow!

• Strath was intended to be a 3-wing instance but the front middle aoe part never really caught on.
• Stealth runs are fine with them
• They don’t use ct raid or raid assist or anything else when testing the levels
• Mind controlling for buffs is INTENDED and not an exploit.
• They’re trying to focus keeping boss fights closer so that people aren’t getting burned out getting through trash before getting a chance for the loot (i.e. old Live side Strath.)

Tomorrow night I’ll post a write up on everything else since I would cover the other things I caught a glimpse of but want to wait till I actually have something interesting to talk about. So for a brief overview of the other stuff to keep you guys interested:

• Ghost does look a lot like halo. Super clean but I was actually smiling when I saw a guy riding a vulture and a Hydralisk popped out of his burrow to pwn the guy. I’ll actually play it tomorrow and give a better write up.
• The Expansion part that was playable was the new Blood Elf starting area and Silithus’s new instance. Again, will devote all 30 min. of my play time to the instance tomorrow. They hook you up with a level 60 of you’re choice with the best epics for their class and an empty, you build it, talent tree. So you’re spending quite a while setting up you’re guy’s action bars and trying to get a raid group together…lots of dueling though from what I saw.
• The Warcraft3/Starcraft tourney set up is great. Players play in the back while out front is a big screen that follows the action around for the crowd but you can still go back and watch them while they are playing. You’ll see from the pics.

My planned panels for tomorrow: Character Class, Cinematic Design (eh, still debating between battlegrounds), Professions & Items, and Raid. And checking out the Starcraft/W3 Finals. So should be a great day.

In fact, if you've got a question. Now's your time to ask, and get it answered in just two days. Be sure to go post them.

Starcraft, amoung many other of the top computer games are in the running for this years steal star. So what's that all about?

Walk of Game is located inside Metreon, a 350,000 square-foot entertainment complex at Fourth and Mission Streets in the heart of downtown San Francisco.

Every year, gamers worldwide cast their vote to induct the next set of honorees to receive a permanent 24"x 24", customized steel star on the Walk of Game. From the list of nominees, the top four in the category of Games/Characters and the top two in Lifetime Achievement will be inducted.

The good news is Starcraft is already in the Top 4, the bad news is that its not first! In fact, its third, trailing be Everquest and Final Fantasy. End this madness, vote today!

• It still received maintenance at the same time as the other realms.
• It was located in the US, thus not decreasing latency.
• We could not offer transfers to this new realm (until such time as the Transfer service was available, of course)?

If you're interested, respond here.

• The name is Burning Crusade.
• Takes place in the Outlands.
• Level cap raised to Level 70.
• 2 new races, Blood Elf (Horde) and TBA (Alliance).
• No new classes.
• New profession, Jewelcrafting, which will allow for slotting and modding items ala Diablo 2.
• New BE starter area and zones north of the Eastern Plaguelands, Silvermoon (their Capital City), Ghostland, and Zul'Aman.
• Epic FLYING FREAKING MOUNT useable only in Outlands.
• Small upgrades to the graphics engine (BE will have 20% more polygons than original races for example).
• Weather effects added.
• Exploring how to add in cross server Battlegrounds.
  

Sounds very exciting, and also possibly true! Questions, comments? Discuss them here.

If you subscribe to World of Warcraft in the US, be sure to check your mail.

We are in the process of sending out e-mails to every U.S. subscriber to World of Warcraft. Each of these e-mails contains one 10-Day Guest Pass Key you can use to recruit a friend into the game. If your friend then becomes a paying subscriber to World of Warcraft, then you will receive a FREE 30-Day Credit to your World of Warcraft account. So be sure to check your inbox over the next couple of days for your Recruit-A-Friend e-mail!

Sounds good. There's never a better time to spread the love.

• Warsong to Gurubashi
• Skullcrusher to Smolderthorn
• Blackrock to Frostwolf

These wont be around forever (till the 27ths to be exact) so if you'd like a change of scene do hurry!

Blizzard has announced a Key of the Hill tournament at BlizzCon for World of Warcraft. Details below:

BlizzCon, Blizzard's inaugural gaming convention, will feature a king-of-the-hill tournament on World of Warcraft's newest battleground: the Arathi Basin.

Players can join as part of a full pre-chosen team, as a small group, or as an individual in a pickup team. After each match, the players on the winning team will keep their seats while the losing team members give up their bank of computers to the next challengers.

In all, there will be three concurrent matches of Arathi Basin going on all day during both days of the convention. The team that retains its status as Kings of the Basin for the most consecutive wins will face the ultimate challenge on each day of the show: a battle against a team of World of Warcraft developers. In addition, there will be other prizes for teams that win multiple consecutive matches.

The results are available here.

• A Paladin Level 52 Quest gives a Bind on Equip Item with no level requirements.

Ouch! Hope this gets fixed quickly or we're going to have some uber Level 1's running around.

The sword reward from the paladin quest has been fixed. It has been changed to have a level 47 requirement as well as is now BoP. The hot fix was implemented 10 hours after the patch release.

1. The Sims 2 Nightlife (Electronic Arts)
2. World of Warcraft (Blizzard)
3. Battlefield 2 (Electronic Arts)
4. Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War Winter Assault (THQ)
5. The Sims 2 (Electronic Arts)
6. Fable: The Lost Chapters (Microsoft)
7. Guild Wars (NCsoft)
8. Nancy Drew: Secret Of The Old Clock (Her Interactive)
9. The Sims Deluxe (Electronic Arts)
10. Dungeon Siege 2 (Microsoft)

Not bad though, given that MMORPGS are hardly top sellers...

If you head over to Battle.net, you will notice that its been updated with a splash screen... something of the form:

That is, if you check out Battle.ne, it'll give you random render of a character in either the Starcraft or Warcraft world. The only feature in common? All of them has the date 10-7-2005.

What could this mean? Well we have three gusses

• Blizzard will announced their unannounced project, which could very possibly be Starcraft 2.
• Blizzard is simply going to officially anounce the World of Warcraft expansion pack, with screenshots and information.
• Blizzard is planning to make a major overhaul to its online gaming system, Battle.net

At this any point, anything goes. So what is it going to be? Read my perspectives and thoughts, and post your own in our discussion thread:

• The mystery of Project X

Whatever it will be, it will be big. Since BlizzCon is only a few weeks away from the day, giving them an ample oppertunity for publicity. We look forward to the surprise!

Remember, Infoceptor is offering tickets to attend the conference.

If you have a digital camera, and 100% sure you can make it to LA in October 28th to 29th, we can provide a free BlizzCon ticket for you. Check out the details here. Be fast though, the offer Closes by Thursday.

Now that concert tickets have been sold out, Blizzard is offering exhibit only tickets for BlizzCon tickets for a reduced price:

Interested parties can click here for more information.

• Always Handle your Gauss Rifle with Care: Part 2

Missed the first chapter? Catch it here. Be sure to check out over 500 other pieces of fan fiction in the stories archive and send in your own!