Aion: Intro Cinematic Trailer

Video Games - E3 2009 - X-Play

And you though all G4 was good for was Olivia Munn's tittays.

WoW: Add Ons I Can't Live Without

No no no, I'm not talking about Deadly Boss Mods or Omen Threat Meter. I'm talking about the really important add-ons you may or may not know about.

First up! And I guarantee that once you get this, you'll never go back:

1) BEJEWELED. Stuck dead in an instance because someone's wireless mouse ran out of batteries and they ran into the 4 Horsemen? No worries! Accidentally took the flight path to Booty Bay from Undercity? It's all good! Because Bejeweled can be set up to pop up in Classic or Timed mode whenever something goes horribly wrong for you. You can even compare your scores with friends and guildies and mock them for not dying as long as you. You can try PEGGLE too, but it's just not as fun as Bejeweled.

Just a warning though. If you don't pay attention when you're manually flying, your proto-drake can crash into a mountain and somehow fall (with you on its back) to its death. Of course, that means one thing...MORE BEJEWELED FOR YOU!

2) GearScore. Mouse over anyone at any time and see their Gear Score proudly displayed for you. Load up the GearScore Recount option and you can compare GearScore vs HPS/DPS. My warning for this one is that when you first get it, it's HELLA' addicting. I barely made it through to Krasus Landing from the Horde Inn in 30 minutes because I was having too much fun mousing over everyone. Hours of fun! Guaranteed!

3) Event Horizon. Didn't think I'd ever use something like this, but I tried it out and to my gerbil like brain, it's awesome. I can't stop looking at the timers. A great gadget for keeping your DoTs, HoTs and Buffs up. Unfortunately, it won't be getting anymore upgrades as the developers are quitting WoW. (I bet because of all the shitty ass players pouring back in thanks to 3.2).

Give 'em a look see!

SWTOR: Release Date Rumours

I just noticed this on MMORPG. Sounds about right...happy next birthday to me?

According to French site StarWars-Universe.com (English Translation) a release date for Star Wars: The Old Republic has been announced. The target is set for an October 2010 release, according to this report.

Keep in mind, we are currently classifying this as a rumor. We have no information to substantiate it at this time, so take it with a grain of salt.

WoW Patch 3.2: The Welfare Epic Extravaganzaaaaaa Rant

I'm not a 48/7 end game raider, nor am I a casual, log in for an hour or two a day player. I play enough to rival anyone in a raiding guild (whether it's productive or not is a different story), and while I'm not infatuated with WoW, I find it to be an entertaining, solid game to play while I wait for things like "Aion" or "Modern Warfare 2" to come out.

But 3.2 is driving me nuts.

In the new 5 man, Trial of the Champion, even on normal, you practically sneeze and a Naxx 10 item gets thrown in your face. Win at the heroic version, and it's Ulduar 10 level loot. And how guilty do I feel getting 5 Conquest Emblems for rolling through H VH!?!?! How many times did I have to suffer through dumb asses running into me with eye beams on Kologarn for one measely badge? HOW MANY?

What next, Blizz? Our own in game bot like in Jade Dynasty so the ridiculously easy road to 80 gets even easier? How about Epics for mounting and dismounting? Better yet, just for logging in?

*sigh*

I do like that casual players and non-raiders are now able to trick themselves out (my friends who don't get to play as much love the patch for allowing them to catch up on gear), but I cannot stand that every single awful, "terribad" player to ever exist is also now able to trick themselves out.

There was quite a bit of incompetance before, but in their sexy new T8s, I've had Tankadins scream bloody murder at me not to AOE because they can't hold aggro on 3 mobs, and cried just a little inside when I see Frost Manges having trouble pulling 1000 dps on the SPIDER WING trash mobs.

Somehow, Gear Score has been equated to being a good player, and the shittiest of the shitty now consider themselves the elite. Just yesterday in H UP, the following conversation took place:

1200 dps Warlock: "Dood, i keepz puling teh agroz i need 2 dps slowwer" (Gear Score: 4200)
1600 dps Paladin: "We r roooooooooling dis jizzoint!" (Gear Score: 4300)
Me: "How much slower can you get?"
Lock: "Nub"

Yeah, I was being catty, but that's after 15 minutes of him boasting about his UBAH dps. Now, I am not the best geared Shadow Priest, nor am I the best player, but suffice to say I was doing over their combined DPS and 20% more over all damage despite having to kite mobs when the Pally tank would forget to put on Righteous Fury. (This happened twice.)

Am I an elitist? Hellz yeah. Because if expecting someone to do their job is being an elitist, I am so there.

Curse you, Aion! September 22nd can't come quick enough. :(

As Seen on TV: Billy Mays Coke Death

So...yeah:

Autopsy: Cocaine a Factor in Billy Mays' Death

Posted Aug 7th 2009 4:33PM by TMZ Staff

A mighty shocking autopsy report concludes cocaine contributed to the sudden death of pitchman Billy Mays back in June.

The report, which was released today, lists "cocaine use" as a contributing cause of death -- along with hypertensive and arteriosclerotic heart disease.

A Hillsborough County press release says "from the presence of metabolites of cocaine and the absence of cocaine itself, it was concluded that Mr. Mays used cocaine in the few days prior to his death but not immediately prior to death."

Mays died in his sleep on June 28 at his home in Florida.

UPDATE: Official documents show the following drugs were in Mays' system -- hydrocodone (Vicodin), oxycodone (painkiller), alprazolam (Xanax), nordiazepam (Valium), benzoylecgonine (byproduct of cocaine) and temazepam (anti-anxiety). Ethanol -- alcohol -- was also in Mays' system.

I understand that coke was a "factor" but I don't know, all the OTHER shit might have had something to do with it too. But I'm not a doctor.

Champions Online: State of the Game Letter

As open beta draws closer (Aug 17th, 2009), thought this would be of interest! INNNNTARESTING read.

State of the Game: August 6th, 2009

Posted by Chronomancer

Greetings, heroes!

I’ve been traveling all around this crazy continent telling people about the game. So much so, that I completely forgot that I was going to be in Los Angeles yesterday showing the game to the Associated Press and Game Trailers and wouldn’t be at Cryptic HQ to put out this week’s State of the Game. The good news is more and more people are hearing about the game at the same time we’ve been getting more beta testers in to play it!

Nemesis Clues

Heroes should start seeing clues at level 20 in the next week that lead them to creating their Nemesis at level 25. There’s something dastardly happening in the background…

Planning Your Pre-Order Rewards

Many of our retail partners are offering Cryptic Points as part of their pre-order incentive programs. These points can be used to make micro-transaction purchases from our store, thus allowing our players to choose their own pre-order rewards! We wanted to give you a sneak peek into some of the things you’ll be able to get when the game launches:

Special Edition Action Figures

• Defender
• Ironclad
• Witchcraft
• Kinetic
• Dr. Destroyer

Special Edition Toys

• Army Man
• Clown
• Pirate
• Robot
• Army Helicopter
• Civilian Helicopter
• Submarine

Crafting Specializations

Heroes enter into the research and development in one of the three crafting schools by talking to a trainer. After this, they also now choose which of three specializations within that field they want to pursue. There are different items available to craft within each specialization, and even some of the items that are similar across specialization may have different visual effects that players can choose to display.

A hero can change specializations at any time. To change specializations within a school, simply talks to the trainer and choose to switch to the new specialization. Be forewarned that there is a cost, however. All accumulated skill points will be lost when switching to a different school OR a different specialization within the same school. The skill point cap will also be set back to 100 in both cases. And don’t worry, blueprints are not be lost as a result of changing schools or specializations. They can, however, become temporarily unusable if your skill points are too low. Also, you can only buy blueprints that are in your field of specialization.

You can manufacture any item that is in the same school, even if it is a different specialization, as long as you have the blueprint and you match or exceed that blueprint's minimum required school skill points. This means that you never lose the knowledge required to craft an item, but if you want to hold more than a single specialization, you will need to rebuild your overall ability to create items within that school. Dedicated crafters can learn all three specializations within a school and then be able to craft everything within that field of research and development.

UNITY Missions

For players planning their Omega careers, here’s a quick rundown on the UNITY mission flow:

1. At level 40 heroes complete the perk Worshipped.
2. They then receive an e-mail from Dr. White inviting them to visit UNITY HQ.
3. This e-mail has an item attached which grants a mission with a waypoint to the UNITY door and has a UNITY key card.
4. Inside the UNITY instance, the hero talks to Dr. White to complete the mission. Dr. White offers membership in UNITY.
5. Accepting the offer enables use of the consoles and teleport pad in UNITY HQ.
6. Each day the hero can get use the UNITY console to gain a mission that sends them to 5 different global Hot Spots. Taking this main daily mission enables the hero to take the 5 missions that correspond to those Hot Spots.
7. If the hero completes all 5 Hot Spot missions, this completes the main daily mission and makes that hero eligible for the day's Special Assignment. Heroes must return to the UNITY HQ to turn in the hotspot list mission and get the Special Assignment.
8. Each hot spot mission gives 1 UNITY Merit as a reward. Each Special Assignment missions give 3 UNITY merits as a reward. Each mission also has a rare chance to grant additional UNITY merits, so a hero should average around 8-10 merits a day if they do all available missions.
9. Merits can be used to purchase rewards from Mentiac, the UNITY quartermaster.
10. There is a chance that Hot Spots and Special Assignments may have a Qliphothic tear. Players can gather Qliphothic energy from these tears to use in special UNITY crafting recipes.

FFXIV: Official Website Updated

I already know what I'll be playing come 2010.

The official website is gorgeous as always and the info attached is super schmexy. If you are a fan of the FF series, then get ye to the nearest PC and go visit:

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/

Get to the choppah! Do it now!

There were rumours circulating back in June that Beta was scheduled for September 2009; one can only hope they're true. Guess we'll find out in a month!