Rock, Paper, Shotgun

French games site NoFrag has some rumours about the next Blizzard MMO, which we know has been in development for some time. Blizzard have already said it will be quite different to World Of Warcraft, but could it be a science fiction MMOFPS with some kind of social element? That’s what NoFrag’s “secret sources” are saying. This is an interesting idea, and totally plausible. After all, people forget that WoW seemed like a risk for Blizzard when they did it originally. The MMOFPS area represents a similar risk: an area that has been dipped into, but never aced. Additionally, that social element. You could see how that might work: life in a science fiction society, where lovable robots and cute aliens can hang out and play Space Chess, but also go on shooty missions. It sounds like a pretty good bet, but the sad thing is we’re not going to hear any kind of confirmation from Blizzard for quite some time.

Roll your speculation, people.

I don’t entirely understand the word ‘jonesing.’ But I’m going to use it anyway. Like so: if you’re jonesing for a fix of Starcraft 2, this will surely make you adequately jonesinated. It’s a longish video showing off a slice of the game’s singleplayer story mode. Does this add purpose and drive to solo-play RTS, elevating it into grand, heroic warfare rather than dicking around with build queues and waypoints, or is it just a whole lot of scripting? Could it -gasp! – even be both?
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It’s the biggest news for kerzillions of people this month. The 3.3 patch for World of Warcraft has gone live. It’s enormous. I’ve actually cut and pasted the whole of the patchnotes below the break, just because it’s so amusingly hefty. It abstractly finishes the whole Wrath of the Lich king element. What’s interesting is that’s not entirely true. While the content’s there, it’s entirely all available. In Icecrown Citadel (outside Swindon) the gates to the next biffy bit opens in 28 days time, apparently. WoW.com calculates that means at the current rate, that Lich King won’t fall until April (Their guide to Patch 3.3 is a monster too). Anyway – the patch trailer and the patch notes follow. What does RPS’ WoW-faithful make of 3.3 life so far?
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So says Blizzard’s official tweeterer, anyway. Sounds as though it’s more about substituting the age-old system with a new one rather than the wholesale removal of it, but a follow-up fan interview (also containing a bunch of questions that very much go into the fine/finer/finest points of the game) with Jay Wilson sheds a little more light. “We’ve decided to remove the tree-type architecture and we are moving into a purely skill-based system. This new system is still in the development stages and if it does not work, we still have plenty of options to fall back on… It differs from the World of Warcraft/Diablo II type hierarchical styles and is more of a skill pool/path than a tree per se.” On top of last month’s reveal that each class would have its own resource rather than all using the rather generic ‘mana’ it’s increasingly clear this isn’t just Diablo II in 3D. It’s Diablo II in 3D with some changes. Yes!
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Today on Games I’m Not That Interested In But Kinda Wish I was, it’s Starcraft II. I’m still waiting for the reveal as to quite what it is about the singleplayer that necessitated trifurcating the game, because I’ve never been much of a one for multiplayer RTS. I can’t, however, imagine that Blizzard are unaware of this kind of mindset, especially in light of what their name means to that hefty slice of the WoW crowd who aren’t into the PvP or raid elements. They’re up to something, I don’t doubt – I just don’t know quite what yet. Hopefully it won’t just involve bombarding us with expensively-made cutscenes until we pass out from lore exhaustion. There’s a hint of what they’re up to in a new dev diary here, which includes the magic word ‘decisions’. Ooh! I like making those! Unless they’re about what to eat or whether I should put any clothes on, anyway. Also: new Zerg footage below. It’s SC2’s take on The Spy…

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Yep, even though the beta was going to happen “in a few weeks” back in September, it’s actually not happening in 2009. Eurogamer have the full story, and they remind us that the first chapter of the game, called “Wings of Liberty”, is due to be released in the second quarter of next year, so some time between April and June. It seems vaguely ludicrous to look back at what I wrote about it when I was one of the first people to play it – back at the end of 2007! Wow, I was still young then. But hey, that’s fine: I’ve basically got more games than I can play right now anyway, and everything else is delayed until after Christmas. I mean, this week alone I still need to write about Tropico 3 and the PC Dirt 2 code we got in – and those Darkspawn aren’t going to kill themselves…

“WoW Microtransactions Begin”, says the headline on Bluesnews. I gasp and imagine what the RPS community will make of the idea of selling a mini-lich and a panda with a hat – two in-game pets – for $10 a pop. Buying the panda one actually gives money to charity, too. He’s not evil, you see. My journalistic analysis of this occurrence amounts to me inviting you to imagine Scrooge McDuck’s diving-into-gold sequence, only with squealing Blizzard executives instead of an anthropomorphised fowl.

So Blizzard’s Starcraft: Ghost action game might not have seen the light of day, but it seems you’re going to be able to build your own third-person shooter within Starcraft II anyway. What? Yes, the editor is super-flexible, and is even going to support mouselook. Building a third-person shooter inside the RTS editing suite is going to be a possibility, as Blizzard demonstrated with their proof of concept at BlizzCon. Video of it in action below. The scrolling shooter is also acceptable. Cheers to sub edii for pointing out this link.
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Enormo-trailer ahoy for World Of Warcraft. We’ve got the full thing posted below, along with two fly-through trailers for the zones of Gilneas and The Lost Isles. We get a look at some of the changes to existing zones that have taken place during the cataclysm, as well as some of the new features and classes. Gobbos, and wolf-dudes, obviously, but also some of the new monsters, dungeons, and progression stuff. Oh, and Deathwing the ebil dragon. He’s not happy.
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BlizzCon has revealed the Monk as another class for Diablo III, as well as revealing new environments with the borderlands, an evil-infested desert zone. The Monk, needless to say, has miraculous punching and teleporting abilities, for the slapping of evil. Multiple trailers below, along with the traditional scene-setting cinematic.

There’s some crazy rumours flying around about Diablo III coming out this year, with the original story being that it won’t hit in 2010. Obviously we’ll be keeping an eye on that.
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