Newman's Place

The release date for Portal 2 was just announced at GamesCon and I though it would be a perfect time to recap some of the upcoming games that I’m looking forward to along with most of their release dates that are know as of this posting.

Halo Reach: Sept 14, 2010
Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood: Nov 16, 2010
Need for Speed Hot Persuit: Nov 16, 2010
Sonic Colours: Nov 16, 2010
Donkey Kong Country: Nov 21, 2010
Portal 2: Feb 9, 2011
Bulletstorm: Feb 22, 2011
Gears of War 3: Apr 5, 2011
Guild Wars 2: Nov 2, 2011

Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Q4 2010
Star Wars The Old Republic: Spring 2011
Trine 2: Spring 2011
Batman Arkham City: Fall 2011
Hitman 5: 2011

Blizzard just released patch 3.5.5 to North American World of Warcraft servers. There really are only two big things this patch introduces, one of which won’t be avaliable until they add this patch to all the other regions and that is the Assault on the Ruby Sanctum raid. The other major addition is the push towards the new Battle.net friends lists named RealID. This lets users add friends add their friends to their friends list but it will show them when they are on any character on any server, any faction, any game and let you chat with them as well.

But things are all fun and games in the World…of Warcraft and as with each patch in the past there is a host of new bugs that were introduced. A list of those can be found at http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25559735749&sid=1

Full patch notes are as follows:

World of Warcraft Client Patch 3.3.5

The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

The latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/

Assault on the Ruby Sanctum
For ages the red dragonflight and its noble matriarch, Alexstrasza the Life-Binder, have dedicated themselves to preserving all life on Azeroth. Recently, the very heart of this virtuous dragonflight has come under threat.

An eerie silence has settled over the Ruby Sanctum, the red dragonflight’s sacred lair within the Chamber of the Aspects. This troubling development has led to fears that the sanctum, home to Azeroth’s largest clutch of red dragon eggs, has been breached by an unknown, sinister force. If these claims are true and immediate action is not taken, the benevolent red dragonflight might be crippled forever.

Real ID: A New Way to Connect With Your Friends on Battle.net
One of our goals for the new Battle.net is to create the framework for an online gaming experience that is even more accessible, more engaging, and more entertaining than the previous Battle.net. The newly released Real ID feature, available to World of Warcraft players as part of patch 3.3.5, is an integral part of this effort, providing you with advanced ways for forming and maintaining meaningful relationships with your friends on the service.

Real ID is a completely voluntary and optional level of identity that keeps players connected across all of Battle.net. When you and a friend mutually agree to become Real ID friends, you’ll have access to a number of additional features that will enrich your social gaming experience in new and exciting ways. Go here for more details.

General

• The Ruby Sanctum, an all-new 10- and 25-player raid dungeon featuring normal and Heroic difficulties, has been added! Players will find the dungeon entrance below Wyrmrest Temple in Dragonblight. Please note due to the way this patch is being applied in all regions, this dungeon will not immediately be available in North America. Stay tuned to our General Discussion forum for an official announcement on the opening of the Ruby Sanctum.
• The functionality of the Vote Kick feature in the Dungeon Finder will now behave differently according to a player’s history with the system. Players using the Dungeon Finder who rarely vote to kick players from a group, or rarely abandon groups before a dungeon is complete, will find that the Vote Kick option will have no cooldown. For players who frequently abandon groups or vote to kick other players, the Vote Kick option will be kept on a cooldown. This functionality will adjust itself as a player’s behavior while using the Dungeon Finder changes.

User Interface
Chat Frame

• Players can now right-click on any chat type (Whisper, Trade, General, Party, Raid, etc.) and choose to move conversation types into separate windows. This will move that chat type to a separate tab in the Chat frame which can be undocked and moved anywhere on the screen.
  • Using the Move to Whisper Window option on a Whisper will place the conversation with that player in a separate tab.
  • Any time a conversation with another player is put into its own tab, the tab will glow when a new message is received.
• Hovering over the Chat Frame and using the mouse wheel will allow players to scroll through chat text.
• Players can select Classic Mode under Interface Options to keep the Chat Frame functionality closer to what it was prior to patch 3.3.5.
• The Simple Chat User Interface option has been removed.

Friends List

• A new icon has been added to the top left of the Chat Frame which will open up the Friends list.
• In addition to its current functionality, the Friends List will now allow players to add Battle.net accounts (Real ID). Players will have to confirm that they are friends in order for a Real ID to be added. Once Real ID friends, players can communicate cross-game, cross-faction and cross-realm.
• A new Pending tab has been added where players can accept or decline a Real ID friend request, or select the Report Spam or Block Communications buttons.
• Players can now select from three statuses which will be visible to their friends: Available, Away and Busy.
• A Broadcast window has been added to the top of the frame. Players can use this to broadcast a message to all of their Real ID friends online. This message will also be displayed under the broadcaster’s Real ID information in each friend’s list.

For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros forum.

This years Electronic Entertainment Expo is due to wrap up any time now and I thought I’d recap a few of the games that sparked my interest.

• Portal 2 — 2011
• Gears of War 3 — April 5, 2011
• Bulletstorm — February 22, 2011
• Crysis 2 — Q4 2010
• Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood — November 16, 2010
• Star Wars: The Old Republic — Spring 2011
• Sonic the Hedgehog 4 — Q4 2010
• Need for Speed Hot Pursuit — November 16, 2010
• Donkey Kong Country Returns — Holiday 2010
• Trine 2 — Spring 2011

Portal 2, more of the same but watching the trailer and live demos they are throwing in roughly four times the amount of content the first Portal had. Including 2 player co-op mode that is different from the single player story mode.

Gears of War 3, I believe this is the final chapter in the Gears series (don’t quote me on that though). This time around they are including a 4 player co-op campaign. I wonder if it will be like Halo 3 where you can play with your friends over Xbox Live to complete the campaign.

Bulletstorm, is a new game from the same studio that produces the Gears of War series, and another shooter. But this one is more focused on over the top kill styles that reward technique and difficult to pull of kills/multi-kills. Defiantly an interesting idea.

Crysis 2, is looking amazingly detailed but pretty much more of the same. I should really get around to finishing the first one and the expansion now that I have a PC that can run it.

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, all I can say is multi-player modes? yes please!

Star Wars: The Old Republic, its looking really good but I’ll need to figure out if its more PVE or PVP centric game before I take the bait.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4, this game is looking really crisp and a lot like the original 2D side-scrolling games that we all love.

Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, out of all the different variations in the Need for Speed franchise Hot Pursuit and Hot Pursuit 2 were by far the best in my opinion. The graphics are shaping up nicely.

Donkey Kong Country Returns, looks exactly like what it sounds like a rebuilt 2D Donkey Kong Country game. Should be great.

Trine 2, only a few details of this one are out but the first Trine game was all sorts of fun. This time around it will include online and offline multi-player.