The development of SC:Ghost is reminiscent of another Blizzard Title, Lord of the Clans. For those of you able to recall, Lord of the Clans was a adventure game slated to be a sequel to Warcraft 2. It was a genre Blizzard has never touched, as a sequel to a popular RTS, and co-developed by a third party company. The game stalled, halted, and in the end, Blizzard seeing that it was delayed to long to meet their standards, had it canceled.

Find the rest here, and be sure to post your opinions!

After seeing the screenshots, and watching the movie, are you hyped about Blizzard's first console game? Or has the hype died forever? Tell us!

It's a new week, and time for a new poll. First, here's the results of the current one:

What is your first impressions of the Battlegrounds in World of Warcraft?
They Rock!	100	29%
They're okay	33	10%
They Suck	25	7%
Haven't tried them	189	54%
TOTAL	347	100 %

Out of everyone who bothered looking at them, which is less the majority, and probably reason why this poll did not score many votes.... Battlegrounds are well recieved. Most people who participated loved them, and chances are you will too, provided you enjoy PvP. As for those who haven't, do so now! Gain some experience in them before the full release... or alternatively, just read our Battleground guides coming soon!

• Possible items for Paladin to fill their ranged slow with.
• Blessing of Freedom will be fixed to grant allies complete immunity to all snares.
• Seal of Command will be improved at higher ranks.
• Blizzard is looking at improving the Paladin's PvP capability.

Sounds good!

Our thanks to everyone that has participated in the Honor System since its launch. We're now in the process of tallying the results and will announce the winners in the near future. In addition to the real-world prizes being awarded, the top player from each faction on each of the realms will receive a custom in-game tabard proclaiming their victory. Stay tuned for the complete list of winners.

Remember that the chance of winning is only proportional to your rank. So, have your fingers crossed, anyone can win!

This contest challenges the adventurers of Azeroth to embrace their inner salesman / saleswomen by creating vintage-style advertisements for their favorite in-game items! See the example illustration to the right. The five grand prize winners will receive a Zboard and World of Warcraft Zboard Keyset! Interested? Click the button below to review the official contest rules and submission information, and start designing! Submissions must be received by 11:59 PM PDT on June 5, 2005 to be considered for the competition.

Intersted? Details are here.

General Battlegrounds changes

All friendly players will now show up on the overhead and mini-map while in a battleground (regardless of whether they are grouped).

Going AFK in a battleground will cause that player to be disconnected from the game.

Spirit Guides will now only resurrect a maximum of ten players per "wave".
You can now choose to join as a group.

Alterac Valley

Alterac Valley has been re-enabled.
Enemy NPC lieutenants and commanders now have a team bonus honor value.

Key NPCs no longer respawn. 

Enemy towers are now destroyed rather than captured
The Alliance and Horde NPC captains now periodically shout a "rallying cry", granting a powerful effect to all friendly players in the battleground. Killing the enemy's captain will deny the ability for the enemy to gain a rallying cry.

Nice changes all round. The complete list is also available.

It’s nice that you college men have found a piece of common ground, but honestly this is ridiculous. If you have your RA, your roommate, your friends across the hall, your girlfriend’s ex boyfriend, and the guy who beat you last week in poker all on the same server going on a quest, you know you’ve hit rock bottom.

Find the rest here.

Check out the rest below:

• Starcraft Ghost Cinematic Stills

• Singleplayer Screenshots
• Multiplayer Screenshots

Go check them out. Also take a look at the rest of the gallery, just to see how the game has evolved in the past year!

Gamespy has managed to interview  Chilton, head of the PvP department within the World of Warcraft development team. There's quite a bit of new information, including what they have planne for new Battlegrounds:

More than that, though, the Blizzard team is kicking around more than a few ideas for new Battlegrounds and future PvP experiences. Current areas under consideration include smaller 5-on-5 fights and some with 60 or even 80 characters on a side. At least one area will duplicate classic FPS deathmatches, one will be designed around a series of open graveyards that can be captured by either side. Once captured, the graveyard can only be used by that side to resurrect its members and the battle is won when one side has no place to re-spawn. Most interesting to long-term Blizzard fans, though, are several Battlegrounds inspired by classic Warcraft III maps. One is a last-ditch defense against wave after wave of computer controlled monsters that attack both sides. Another is a classic map with peons gathering resources. First team to kill all the peons and cut off the supplies to their enemy wins. Further down the road, the team is working on adding vehicles to the game, including massive siege engines like catapults and giant arbalests that players will use to assault fortifications.

We can't wait. Let's hope that there will eventually be a World of Warcraft version of defense of the ancients! 

E3 2005 has just restored my faith in StarCraft: Ghost completely. My brief demo of the single-player and new multiplayer content left me begging for more. The game's heroine, Nova the Ghost, is a perfectly honed killing machine. Her stealth abilities and close-combat techniques are unparalleled, and that's why I had so much fun with the three single-player levels on show at Blizzard's modest booth.

Read it here.

Ghost looks like it's got a pretty darn cool multiplayer mode, which supports up to eight players (presumably just on Xbox and PS2) and features different character classes and vehicles. It's somewhat reminiscent of Command & Conquer Renegade, a PC shooter from a couple of years ago, but mostly just in spirit. Like Ghost, Renegade is an action game inspired by a real-time strategy game, whose RTS elements worked their way into the multiplayer. We actually haven't seen too much RTS-style gameplay in Ghost yet, but in multiplayer, it was great to see a playable firebat (Starcraft's flame-spewing infantry) as well as a drivable vulture scout bike, among others. The authentic Starcraft-style visuals and characters are definitely what stood out about the multiplayer, which looked like it could be quite fun.

Read the rest here. 

We're very happy to announce that we've just completed the acquisition of acclaimed console developer Swingin' Ape Studios. Swingin' Ape's team of more than 40 employees have joined Blizzard and are forming the foundation of our new console development team. As a wholly owned subsidiary of Blizzard Entertainment, the team will continue work on StarCraft: Ghost, which we'll be showcasing in our booth at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles later this week. For more information on this exciting turn of events, please see our latest press release.

Couple with this, Blizzard is in the process of hiring half a dozen new staff for development of the title, including a Senior Game Designer, 3D Artist, Senior Level Designer, Senior Engine Programmer, and Audio Software Engineer. 

The game is now scheduled for release this Christmas... will it happen? Discuss in our Starcraft Ghost Forum!

Did the new Honor System improve your World of Warcraft Experience?
Yes, a lot!	97	15%
Yes, a little.	188	29%
It Sucks!	199	30%
Don't Play WoW	169	26%
TOTAL	653	100 %

Interesting... despite all the complaints, it appears that the honor system was on average, still well recieved. I suppose anything for level 60's to do is better than nothing. It is fortunate though, that the new battleground system will be released soon, to give point to honour.

How Long does it take to join a BG?
Not that long. For the 40 vs 40 BG at Alterac, you can get in within a minute. Warsong Gulch is slightly longer, as the game will only start once 10 people from each side has gathered, and hence may take 5-10 minutes to join. Of course, this all assumes your level 60, at levels lower than 50, it make take several hours.

Can you spend your whole time in BG without losing gold?
Yes! In Warsong Gulch, there's no durability loss when you die and so you only need to pay marginal repair costs. These are generally offset by the average of 1 silver you gain per kill and the 1.8g you gained for each victory. (A game takes on average 20-30 min). In Alterac Mountains, you can gain 1.8g by looting the heads off enemy bodies, plus all the NPCs drop gold. A nice touch is Runecloth is also dropped, and there's even mines. However, you do suffer a durability loss upon death.

Check out the rest over here, and be sure to post your own question!

More screenshots are available here.

Check out more shots over here.

• Test Realm Patch Notes

Even if you don't normally log onto test servers, this little fact may make you change your mind. Other notable changes included

• Orc Hardiness Talent finally working!
• Warlocks recieved significant buffs.
• New Horde Village with Flight Point added in Hinterlands
• New Neutral Outpost in Searing Gouge.
• Killing Civilian NPC's will cost you contribution points (but not grey players)
• Warlocks can gain soul shards from honourable kills.
• You can access meeting stones through innkeepers!

Sounds good!

Hat's off to Ironbull, he's ventured off to the the alliance area, Elwyn forest, all his items are things picked up. Well You can read about it here. Best of luck you you Ironbull!

Just to recap on the color code:

Yellow = rogue
Brown = warrior
Green = hunter
Blue = mages
Violet = warlock
Pink = shaman

One can clearly see that despite complaints, rogues by far out damage mages in raid boss fights. In fact, mages are consistently being out damaged by warriors, hunters and warlocks, which pretty much sum up every other non healing class. The reason? Simple. Items can boost a warrior's damage output 5 fold, it'll be lucky to increase a mage's by anything more than 10%.

Don't worry though, mages still have a place, due to the necessity for AOE, which also rulese supreme in group PvP.

• Wallpapers Index

A talented artist yourself? We'd love to showcase your work, be sure to send it in!

MMORPGs are not meant to top sales charts... but it appears that World of Warcraft has managed to break the trend. Now, half a year since its release, the game has once again resumed the position of the top selling PC Game:

1. World of Warcraft (Blizzard)
2. The Sims 2 University (Electronic Arts)
3. Stronghold 2 (2K Games)
4. The Sims 2 (Electronic Arts)
5. Half-Life 2 (Vivendi Universal)
6. DOOM 3: Resurrection of Evil (Activision)
7. The Sims Deluxe (Electronic Arts)
8. DOOM 3 (Activision)
9. Galaxy of Games 350 JC (eGames)
10. LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game (Eidos)

• Added minimum level requirements to all instances to prevent exploitive behavior. The minimum levels are very generous and should not affect the normal course of gameplay.

• Archbishop Benedictus staged a temporary coup, and has taken the title of NPC leader of Stormwind City from Highlord Bolvar! Horde seeking to take out the leader of Stormwind should focus their efforts on Archbishop Benedictus for the duration. These changes will remain until the next content patch, when Highlord Bolvar reclaims his rightful throne. Killing him gives 15,000 contribution points.

• Druid ability: Rip – greatly increased in attack power.

For more information, check out this thread.