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Charity Pet Raises $2.31 Million for Sandy Hurricane Victims

blizzardBlizzard Entertainment has announced that World of Warcraft players raised over $2.3 million to be donated to the American Red Cross to assist victims of Hurricane Sandy. The money was raised through sales of the Cinder Kitten in-game pet. 100% of the cost of the Cinder Kitten was donated to the ARC.

 

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Read more on the World of Warcraft community site.

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Blizzard Art Book to Debut Tonight

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Blizzard Entertainment and Art Nucleus have announced that tonight will mark a special exhibition of works from the forthcoming “Art of Blizzard Entertainment” book. The California event will mark the first time the book can be purchased.

Gallery Nucleus is having a book launch and art exhibit for the release of “The Art of Blizzard Entertainment”. During the opening reception, January 12, 2013 / 7pm-11pm, several of the artist featured in the book will be here to speak with attendees and sign books. Gallery Nucleus is the first place fans can purchase a copy of the new art book. We are also releasing four official “Blizzard” prints for a limited time. Fans who can’t make it to the opening but want a signed copy can order on the website. I hope this piques your interest enough to let your members know about this exciting event. Thank you for your time and have a wonderful weekend.

Find out more about the event on the Gallery Nucleus site.

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PlanetSide 2 List of Changes for Next Update

Happy New Year, I hope you all had a great 2012 and are having an amazing start to 2013. On the Planetside 2 we had a pretty **** fantastic 2012, but we’re looking forward to even bigger and better things in 2013! I’ve said before that while 2012 was the year that Planetside 2 launched, 2013 is the year when we’re opening up the afterburners and aiming for the stars. After a well earned rest the team is energized and ready to get back to  fixing bugs.ps2tankmain1

  • General performance increases, particularly for lower end GPUs

  • Experience (XP) system enhancements:Server transfer token available in Depot

    • Dynamic XP system for player kills, players who have more kills on their current life are worth more XP. Freshly spawned players will be worth a fraction of the current kill reward.
    • Partial damage XP for dealing damage to vehicles that you don’t end up killing
    • Population XP / Resource bonus moved over to continent population instead of global
    • Better display of XP sources for things like defensive bonuses & population bonuses
    • Rebalancing of XP rewards to help support tasks

  • UI changes to emphasize score per minute as a primary metric of player comparison

  • Sortable columns on outfit management & addition of “last online” column

  • New weapon type for all empires: SMG

  • Short period of invulnerability will be added to freshly spawned / revived players – breaks upon game actions such as entering a vehicle or using a weapon.

  • Dynamic / player configurable colors for minimap & overhead indicators for enemies, friendlies, and squads within a platoon

  • New Hot Spot system that displays where active fights are occurring on the map

  • New spawn buildings with more exits, protected balconies and easy roof access to make them less campable.

  • Tunnel systems for amp and tech facilities to give access from spawn rooms to interior of bases and base walls without having to go above ground.

  • Making MAXes render more reliably at long distances for players in vehicles

  • AA improvements, notably flak changes for turrets and skyguards, giving them some better ability to aim, although not drastically impacting their DPS.

  • Fixes to missiles so that they more reliably detonate and actually blow stuff up

  • Air vehicle weapon tweaks

  • Increases to reload speed for certain HE ground vehicle weapons

  • And of course… lots of bug fixes

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The Elder Scrolls Online Avoiding a Wall

1749DaedrothFreedom in an MMO: once, I thought this was a given aspect of all MMORPGs. But recent releases have changed this facet of the genre. Many titles now place the player on rails through a batch of content, and then hope to God there will be enough waiting at the end to keep that person paying and offering up their precious time (and money). This is fundamentally flawed. Content is so costly to develop that studios can never make enough to keep players satiated. Inevitably, a vocal portion of player base winds up out of things to do and creates a feeling of restlessness among the community. I don’t want this column to become an essay on the virtues of “sandbox” over “themepark” design mentality, but simply put: player freedom and robust systems will amount to longevity in a well-designed and rendered MMORPG. Elder Scrolls Online must not only give fans of their vaunted series a compelling narrative and world to explore, but they must give them the freedom to explore that world in any way they wish. And they must also avoid the pratfalls of the “gear grind” as a means to keep players hooked.