Rock, Paper, Shotgun

“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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The new World Of Warcraft expansion has been announced at BlizzCon. It’s called “Cataclysm”, and will raise the level cap to 85. There’s also going to be two new playable races, goblins and worgen, and the obligatory new dungeons and raids. VG247 got the whole thing in detail over here.

The Monk class was announced for Diablo III, too. And there’ll presumably be a video available soon – the main site has been flattened by the internet for now.

More hyperbolic hyperbiff inbound from Blizzard, who are going to be causing fanmen to punch the air and whoop at Blizzcon later this week. It’s time for the Starcraft II trailers, and we have a CGI sequence with Zeratul up to his Protoss-business in some space-ruins – not Blizzard’s best, but okay – and then plenty of in-game footage, showing off storyline, environmental effects, and tiny men shooting each other unto death. Also robo-things with lasers for eyes, which usually go down okay in the Rossignol household.

Other SC2 news includes: No co-op campaign, and some kind of DLC, as well as a “trial”, which will be released after the game hits the shelves/internet.
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Chums of RPS VG247 have (just about) scooped the internet with a huge hands-on previews of Starcraft II, and an interview with Blizzard bossman Rob Pardo. Needless to say, we get to learn quite how Starcraft II causes other games to seem like nothing in comparison, and how the three-game structure that the game has been broken up into will work. Here’s Pardo on those two follow-up expansions: “Right now the plans are to do something along the lines of full single-player campaign and some additional features on the multiplayer side, but obviously using the same engine. That to me is an expansion price point. If we decided to put in three new races, and a bunch of new technology and features, maybe that would be a standalone product. But right now I think we’re looking at being much more like an expansion feature-set.” Anyway, go have a read of the full thing. The internet will be overflowing with more SC2 stuff today, following a big press event.

We’ve done some psychic research and are aware quite how many Diablo II fans there are reading. Loads of you. So there should be some smiles at the news that there’s an unofficial patch to finally let you play it at a decent resolution. If you’re still playing the game, and we know you are, you’ll know the frustration of the limitations. Fret no more! (The small catch is it means you can’t play online.) You can get the patch from ModDB, and then play the game in any resolution your monitor is willing to present.

Oh, Peggle. I remember when you were just an innocent wee lad, our precious little boy, wouldn’t say boo to a goose. Now you’re out there in the big wide world, rubbing shoulders with the elite with nary a backwards glance. Just don’t forget that you’re still, you’re still Peggle from the block.

Yes, we’ve had Official Orange Box Peggle, Disappointingly Similar Sequel Peggle and Played Within World of Warcraft Peggle. Now we get, simply, World of Warcraft Peggle – 10 free, standalone bonus Peggle levels.
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UPDATE: This story on VG247 suggests that they really mean it: no LAN support of any kind. Bananas.

An abundance of Starcraft II stuff has appeared on the grainy info screens of RPS HQ, including project lead Dustin Browder saying that the beta is set to last “four to six months”. Which means they’ll be right up against it if they’re aiming to get the game out before Christmas. In rather more bizarre news, Blizzardian hyperboss Rob Pardo has said that that the game won’t support a LAN option, and that the decision not to include it “is because of the planned technology to be incorporated into Battle.net.” Which presumably means they are going to support play over a local network, but you’ll still need to be online and logged into Battlenet on individual accounts to play. Maybe. I could be quite, quite wrong.

Seven minutes of footage – watch those tiny dudes eviscerate! – courtesy of Joystiq, below.
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