Ancalagon Wodell > www.weekhoo.com

Are you considering alternatives or changes to the current Auction House?
We will continue to improve the auction house interface. We also plan on putting auction houses in all major cities and linking them to one another.
Will high-level players be punished in some way under the new PvP system when they kill low-level players?
We aren’t planning on punishing players for killing low level players; instead we would like to offer compelling incentives to players who kill appropriately level opponents. In addition, the Battlefields will be restricted to players of specific level ranges.
Will new zones be introduced soon to the game and will there be instanced dungeons with those zones?
We are planning on introducing Maraudon a level 40-49 instance dungeon in Desolace in the next content patch. Our dungeon team is also working on another high-level dungeon that will be implemented in one of the upcoming patches. We are also working on additional raid content for players of specific level ranges and we expect that the most compelling PvP content will be in Battlefields.
Do you plan on taking more advantage of the in-game mail system?
We are planning on using the mail system for quests in the future. In addition we plan on adding new mail features, such as sending multiple items in one mail.
What’s the goal for patching in the different territories in terms of timing?
Our goal with each patch is to translate and test it so there is very little delay in distributing it to all territories.
Will you be adding more raid quests?
The next few patches will contain additional raid quests, including quests focusing on the Molten Core and more raid bosses. We don’t want to ruin any surprises by telling you their names.
Do you have plans for one-shot events in the game, such as for Halloween, the holidays, etc?
We do have plans for world events, such as special items and quests for holidays, but again we don’t want to ruin any surprises…
Any plans for adding more map functionality over time?
Yes – we do have plans to improve the map functionality.
What side and classes do Blizzard people play?
We have a big team, and almost every class and race are represented. The community team plays the following: Gnome/Warrior, Tauren/Druid, and Nightelf/Rogue!
What are the plans for Silithus?
We are going to continue to patch in Silithus content over time, and one day the gates of Ahn’qiraj will open revealing an instanced raid zone.
What are your thoughts on PvP balance and how the classes should stack up versus each other?
Although we will be making balance improvements, in general we are pretty happy with our PvP class balance. However, we don’t feel drastic changes are needed at this time.
Will you add new quests to existing zones or only to new zones?
We will be adding quests to existing zones as well as quests for all of the new zones. In addition, more class specific quests and more quests to Kalimdor.
Do you plan on making any changes on how daze works?
Daze chance has been reduced in degrees depending on the level of the monster versus the level of the player. Thus, a monster will have a better chance to Daze a player equal in level than it would Dazing a player five levels higher.
What are your plans for Battlegrounds?
Battlegrounds are currently being tested and refined internally. The Battlegrounds offer a variety of new game mechanics, such as the ability to capture graveyards and guard towers.
How long will it take to reach the highest rank in the PvP system?
Players will need to actively participate in honorable PvP in order to gain and maintain honor rankings. We expect the process of climbing to the top of the ranks will take at least a few months, at which point those players will need to continue performing at a high level i

Updated – 4-22-05 – Made slight grammatical changes and changed the part about Track Undead only being useful to the Alliance. A fellow Hunter pointed out that Undead PCs are counted as Humanoids, only Undead NPCs are tracked using Track Undead.
Hunter PVP Strategies – Levels 1-30 by Krazagore
Some acronyms are used in the following article that might not be familiar to you, for reference, here are the acronyms and their meaning.
PvP – Person versus Person (fighting real people)
PvE – Person versus Environment (fighting computer controlled monsters)
NPC – non-player character (controlled by a computer)
PC – Player Character (controlled by a real person)
DPS – Damage Per Second
AoC/AoH/AoM – Aspect of the Cheetah/Hawk/Monkey
Introduction
The first thing to remember when engaging in PvP is that the other person is just that, a person. People make mistakes, but they also utilize techniques that are beyond a simple computer controlled monsters programming. For example, an NPC controlled Rogue won’t try to run behind you to use its backstab ability, but a player controlled Rogue will. An NPC isn’t smart enough to use an ability that slows you down if you flee, but a player is.
If you’re a first time PvPer, it’s important to forget everything you know about PvE combat in order to fully grasp PvP combat. PvP and PvE are like apples and oranges, relatively similar on the outside, but extremely different on the inside. Just standing there and blasting away like you do in PvE just won’t work in a PvP situation. Most of the below strategies are oriented around your range attacks, if you prefer being a melee Hunter for some odd reason, these strategies won’t be as effective.
The following strategies are useful for levels 1-30, and perhaps beyond. I’m not necessarily claiming that these strategies will work beyond level 30, because I’m only a level 32 Hunter myself! However, these techniques are utilized by both me and my peers to great effect. I’m hoping they’ll benefit you as well. Also keep in mind that these strategies are much more relavent on a PvP server.
Your Pet
Hunters primarily use their pet as a tank when engaging in PvE, but in PvP it’s for pure damage, since taunting doesn’t work against PCs. With this in mind, I’d advise getting a pet that is high in DPS, NOT armor, unless you plan to never ever engage in PvP! Generally, pets that have higher armor (like turtles) only have about 10% more armor than pets with higher DPS (like cats). Pets with a high DPS, on the other hand, have a 20% higher DPS than those with more armor. So either your pet lives 10% longer but does 20% less damage, or your pet lives 10% shorter but does 20% more damage. That might be too technical for some, but overall, I’d recommend a higher DPS pet in any situation. Pets with the highest DPS are usually cats and some canines.
Aspects
Generally, aspects are turned on and forgotten about. You turn on AoC when you need to travel, and AoH when you’re fighting. In PvP, their use becomes much more varied. For example, say a Warrior sneaks up on you as you’re fighting a mob, assuming your pet has the monsters agro in hand, you could immediately turn on AoC, run a distance away, jump, turn around in mid-air by holding the right mouse button, and fire your Concussive Shot, slowing them 50%. With AoC on, that’s a 80% speed advantage over your opponent, which is huge! AoM is also very effective, especially against Rogues, since they attack so fast. AoC is also useful in escaping, of course.
Tracking
Tracking is an invaluable skill, both in PvE and PvP, your most valuable tracking skills from 1-30 will be Track Humanoid and Track Hidden. Track Humanoid can alert you to an opponent long before they reach you, and Track Hidden is useful to keep Rogues from sneaking up behind you. You’ll probably end up using Track Humanoid more often, I’d recommend keeping it on at all times in a hostile area, unless you feel the need to see where beasts are with Beas

COLOGNE, Germany (Hollywood Reporter) – Films and videogames would seem a match made in heaven, so why are games based on hit movies so bad? Despite sharing the same demographic of devoted fans, action, sci-fi and fantasy films rarely translate into branded videogame hits.
“Movie-based games almost never work. No matter how cool the movie, the game is almost always lame,” said Philipp Dollinger, a gamer reviewer for German blog Pressakey.com and one of thousands of gamers swarming the halls of the gamescom trade fair, which runs until Sunday in Cologne.
“Most are just bad imitations of better games already out there,” he added.
Hollywood has been burned before in the gaming space. Just ask Brash Entertainment, the U.S. group that raised $400 million to buy up film licenses and turn them into hit games. After two major flops — an “Alvin and the Chipmunks” game and one based on Fox’s sci-fi feature “Jumper” (2008) — Brash folded. It was a similar story for Pandemic Brisbane, the Australian outpost of the Los Angeles-based game developer, which shuttered in February after a disastrous attempt to deliver an ambitious game based on Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster “The Dark Knight.”
Despite those warning signs, there are plenty of new A-list movie ties at gamescom, and plenty of developers saying they have learned their lessons.
LONG-TERM PROJECTS
“For a lot of movies, the game is an afterthought,” said Jake Meri, a producer at LucasArts. “The filmmakers are close to finishing production and they say, ‘Oh, what about the game?’ But a good game takes years of development.”
LucasArts put in the time for its new release, “Star Wars: The Old Republic,” a game it is developing with Canadian outfit BioWare for games giant Electronic Arts.
“Star Wars”-based games have gotten mixed reviews in the past, but the buzz has been strong for “The Old Republic.” LucasArts and BioWare have spent years designing the title, which will be a massively multiplayer online game similar to “World of Warcraft” — a game intended to be played online by thousands of people simultaneously.
PC Gamer U.K. called “The Old Republic” “a credible ‘World of Warcraft’ killer,” and the lineups to see the demo at gamescom have been longer than those at most movie premieres.
“We have a lot to live up to with this game, which is why we’ve spent so much time and money on it,” Meri said. “It will be the first fully voiced MMO game in the world. Voicing this game has been the most ambitions voiceover project ever — we have thousands of characters speaking more than 200,000 lines of dialogue.”
LucasArts is famous for its obsessive protection of the “Star Wars” franchise, but the trend toward closer cooperation between film and games studio is one seen across the industry. James Cameron was hands-on for the more than three years France’s Ubisoft took to develop “Avatar,” a combat game based on Cameron’s upcoming film.
“It was really unprecedented,” Ubisoft developer Patrick Naud said. “We had full access to everything — the story boards, the concept art, the sound, the voices, the animation. It wasn’t a typical movie licensing, where you buy the license and go away and make the game. It was a much closer collaboration.”
“Avatar” will be one of the first big tests of this kind of tight movie-game teamwork when it hits stores in November, ahead of the film’s holiday release. “It might be too soon to say this, but James Cameron is a trendsetter, so maybe, in the future, this is the way everyone will be doing business,” Naud said. “It would certainly make a lot more sense.”
(Editing by SheriLinden at Reuters)
Article Source: www.reuters.com.

Kane is invading the Xbox 360, and he’s bringing the ultimate console RTS experience with him! The follow up to last year’s Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars*, Kane’s Wrath has gone gold for the Xbox 360, and will be shipping on June 23, 2008 with an MSRP of $39.99. Gamers who pre-order Kane’s Wrath from Gamestop.com will receive an exclusive talking Kane Bobblehead doll (available while supplies last).

Featuring the all-new CommandStick interface, a revolutionary control scheme built from the ground up and optimized for the Xbox 360, Kane’s Wrath is packed full of content, including a full 13 mission story-driven campaign, the Xbox 360-exclusive Kane’s Challenge mode, six new diverse sub-factions, game changing epic units and over 50 multiplayer maps for online play over Xbox Live with up to four players.

Kane’s Wrath on the Xbox 360 will also come with 1000 achievement points spread across the game’s four main game modes (Campaign, Kane’s Challenge, Skirmish and Multiplayer) and support for the console’s Vision Cam over Xbox Live.

For more information about Command & Conquer 3: Kane’s Wrath or the Command & Conquer series, please visit the franchise’s official site at www.CommandAndConquer.com. And be sure to check out the latest news about Kane’s Wrath, C&C Red Alert 3, and all things C&C on Command & Conquer’s own dedicated online programming network, Command & Conquer TV.

* Command & Conquer 3: Kane’s Wrath DOES NOT require Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars to play.

Article Source: www.gamespy.com.

We all knew that World of Warcraft patch 2.4 was going to be the last major milestone before Wrath of the Lich King released. Who could have forseen that Blizzard would be making such major changes to the original gameworld in the newest changes to the PTR? Massively’s sister site WoW Insider has the full patch notes for 2.4.3, and there are a number of really interesting tweaks going on there.

Mounts are now available at level 30, and it only costs 35 gold to grab the Apprentice Riding skill. You have to figure this is purely designed to keep players intersted in alts before the expansion.
Some non-combat pets are receiving tweaks to make them more enjoyable, and a whole new critter is now in the game – a Nether Ray Fry for players Exalted with the Sha’tari Skyguard.
Haris Pilton, the unique namealike in the World’s End Tavern, has apparently launched a new line of bags and jewelery. Will these be real items, or just story pieces similar to what Griftah offers from his inventory?
Pretty much every class has gotten a slight tweak to their abilities, with the high-level Rogue Subtlety talent Cheat Death receiving a pretty serious nerf.
Numerous changes to old world content in Tanaris, STV, Winterspring and other zones are noted.
The devs have added some basic utilities to the game, like an alarm and a stopwatch.
Players can be summoned into Heroic raid instances.
Other world tweaks and bug fixes, including replacing the bats outside of Silvermoon and Tranquillien with the Dragonhawks from the Isle of Quel’danis.

If this is the kind of change we can now expect from a minor patch, what will 3.0 (WotLK) look like? Stay with Massively and WoW Insider to find out.
Article Source: www.massively.com.

Blizzard has posted updated PC and Mac user specifications today via the official World of Warcraft forums for the impending expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. User comments to the thread note that the revised specs are more intensive for Mac users than PC users. The blue post states up front that while these are recommended specs, they are certainly not required to be able to play the game.
PC System Requirements
OS: Windows XP (Service Pack 3), Windows Vista (Service Pack 1)
Processor:
Minimum: Intel Pentium 4 1.3 GHz or AMD Athlon XP 1500+
Recommended: Dual-core processor, such as the Intel Pentium D or AMD Athlon 64 X2
Memory:
Minimum: 512 MB RAM (1GB for Vista users)
Recommended: 1 GB RAM (2 GB for Vista users)
Video:
Minimum: 3D graphics processor with Hardware Transform and Lighting with 32 MB VRAM
Such as an ATI Radeon 7200 or NVIDIA GeForce 2 class card or better
Recommended: 3D graphics processor with Vertex and Pixel Shader capability with 128 MB VRAM
Such as an ATI Radeon X1600 or NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT class card or better
Sound: DirectX-compatible sound card or motherboard sound capability
Mac System Requirements
OS: Mac OS X 10.4.11 or newer
Processor:
Minimum: PowerPC G5 1.6 GHz or Intel Core Duo processor
Recommended: Intel 1.8GHz processor or better
Memory:
Minimum: 1 GB RAM
Recommended: 2 GB RAM
Video:
Minimum: 3D graphics processor with Hardware Transform and Lighting with 64 MB VRAM
Such as an ATI Radeon 9600 or NVIDIA GeForce Ti 4600 class card or better
Recommended: 3D graphics processor with Vertex and Pixel Shader capability with 128 MB VRAM
Such as an ATI Radeon X1600 or NVIDIA 7600 class card or better
All Platforms
Controls: A keyboard and mouse are required. Input devices other than a mouse and keyboard are not supported.
Connectivity: You must have an active broadband Internet connection to play.
Mouse: Multi-button mouse with scroll wheel recommended.
Hard Drive Space: 15 GB free hard drive space
Stay tuned for GameSpy’s BlizzCon 2008 coverage and our extended beta coverage of Wrath of the Lich King.


Article Source: www.gamespy.com.