http://www.filefront.com/14872891/Dragon-Age-Origins-Toolset-v1.0/

This is a minor patch to fix a few small bugs found in Dragon Age.

http://www.filefront.com/14870387/Dragon-Age-Patch-v1.01a/

You can grab it on FileFront here:

http://www.filefront.com/14857523/FIFA-Manager-10-Patch-v2.0.0.3/

Brutal Legend Tim Schafer Walkthrough Trailer 2

The second in a series, this time Tim brought along some friends in Lee Petty, Art Director on Brutal Legend, and Erik Robson, Lead Designer on Brutal Legend.

http://www.filefront.com/14090905/BrutalLegend_TimcShaferWalkthrough_Trailer2.mp4/

Puzzle Quest: Galactrix v1.01 Retail Patch

This patch will update your Puzzle Quest Galactrix install to version 1.01.

http://www.filefront.com/14090921/PuzzleQuestG_PC_1.01_Update.exe/

Shadow Complex Gameplay Trailer

This trailer shows off Chair Entertainment’s action game for XBox Live, Shadow Complex. The game is set in the world of Orson Scott Card’s Empire novel.

http://www.filefront.com/14091161/Shadow_Complex_Game_Footage_v1.wmv/

NHL 10 Be a GM Trailer

This trailer showcases the Be a GM feature in the upcoming EA Sports hockey title, NHL 10.

http://www.filefront.com/14091167/NHL10_PROD_DIARY_GM_V10_H264.mov/

This trailer features over a minute and a half of gameplay from Battlefield Heroes, the upcoming free-to-play browser-based cartoon shooter from DICE.

Get it at FileFront!

In short, he refers to the recent rumors that Blizzard’s Chinese World of Warcraft servers aren’t going to be coming back up anytime soon. For those of you who aren’t aware, Blizzard recently transferred their license to operate WoW in China to NetEase, away from The9.

The9 filed several lawsuits in an attempt to stop this transfer, and the Chinese government accordingly refused to give NetEase a license to operate WoW, saying that “in order to protect the interests of domestic gaming enterprises,” they would “suspend review of all games belonging to foreign companies in the event of lawsuits or arbitration between foreign companies and Chinese companies.”

The Chinese servers have already been down for a month or so, and there’s still no word on when they might return. This really doesn’t hurt Blizzard as much financially as you might think, as they received little revenue from the Chinese players, who pay as little as 6 cents an hour to play.

But how does this get Blizzard down to 5 million subscribers?

Well, that number is admittedly an estimate, especially since Blizzard doesn’t release subscriber numbers by country…anymore. This number was arrived at by using the percentages from the last press release they revealed these numbers in, which as I recall was just after the release of The Burning Crusade expansion. However, it stands to reason that the country to country proportions wouldn’t shift that far from what they were then. After all, it’s not like WoW wasn’t already an established presence at that time. As Tobold himself explains in the comments of the post,

The source is the last Blizzard press release which still announced user numbers by continent. Unfortunately they stopped doing that a while ago, and we can only assume there have been no major shifts since then.

Blizzard has to be concerned about this. After all, their ‘11 million subscriber’ claim is without a doubt the 800 lb gorilla in the MMORPG room. If this outage continues, they will undoubtedly see players trickle away to other MMOs that are up and running. As we all know, once a player is gone and established elsewhere, it becomes difficult to lure them back.

Many of the affected players have moved to Taiwanese servers, especially those who raid regularly. As for the others, even if Blizzard were to lose every single subscriber, they’d still be somewhere between five and seven million (estimated) active subscribers. That’s still a massive base of playing customers, and it’s still the bulk of their income base, which makes me wonder: Why haven’t we heard about this from Blizzard already? I’d expect them to come out and try to get the court of public opinion on their side (not that it would make much difference to the Chinese government). Still, why haven’t they?

My questions: When will hear the details of this from Blizzard, and how long do you think those servers can remain down before they reach a point where they will not recover the majority of those players? Even more intriguing: Does this whole snafu have anything to do with Electronic Arts’ purchase of The9 in 2007?

“Command & Conquer is a powerful franchise with an amazing 15-year legacy. We are thrilled to bring the dramatic Tiberium saga to a conclusion in Command & Conquer 4. This game is designed to give fans all the answers they’ve been looking for,” said Mike Glosecki, Lead Producer of Command & Conquer 4 at EA Los Angeles. “With its objective-based multiplayer mode, persistent player progression and all-in-one mobile base, players will experience Command & Conquer like never before.”

Much of the information on C&C4 is being kept under wraps and doled out as exclusive content. For more details on Command & Conquer 4 make sure to catch BattleCast PrimeTime on the July 24th episode. They’ll be revealing exclusive information C&C4. The first glimpse of the game will be the premier cinematic trailer aired exclusively on the July 23rd episode of Gametrailers TV on SPIKE TV. The ETA for Command & Conquer 4 is sometime in 2010.

Behold disciples of Nod, the end is soon upon us. Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) today announced that, after almost 15 years and 30 million games sold, EALA is bringing the award-winning Tiberium series to an epic conclusion with Command & Conquer™ 4. Shipping in 2010, Command & Conquer 4 will introduce a multitude of innovations to the to the classic fast and fluid Command & Conquer gameplay while retaining the core compulsions that fans have come to love over the series’ history. Introducing new class-based gameplay, mobile bases and persistent player progression throughout all game modes, Command & Conquer 4 offers players new, innovative and compelling strategic depth. The story of Command & Conquer 4 takes place after the events of the critically acclaimed Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars™. The year is 2062 and humanity is at the brink of extinction. With only six years left until the mysterious crystalline structure Tiberium renders the earth entirely uninhabitable, the two opposing factions – Global Defense Initiative (GDI) and the Brotherhood of Nod – inevitably find themselves in desperation for the same cause: to stop Tiberium from extinguishing mankind. The unthinkable becomes reality and Nod’s enigmatic leader Kane takes off for GDI headquarters. What is Kane planning in the heart of his enemies’ base? Command & Conquer 4 draws the epic conclusion to the beloved Tiberium universe, where fans will learn the fate of Earth, Nod, Tiberium, GDI and most importantly, Kane’s motivations behind his decade-long plan. In addition to the two campaigns on the epic battles of GDI and Nod, which players will get to conquer alone or in a cooperative mode, Command & Conquer 4 will also feature a new 5v5 objective-based multiplayer mode, promoting teamwork and cooperation and delivering a social real-time-strategy experience never seen before in a Command & Conquer game. Command & Conquer 4 is being developed at EA Los Angeles and will ship to retailers in 2010 for the PC. The game has not yet been rated by the ESRB or PEGI. For more information about the game, please visit www.commandandconquer.com or follow the community and development team on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ea_apoc.

Tracks:

Dixie Chicks                                           “Sin Wagon”
GLaDOS and Jonathan Coulton                  “Still Alive”
The Pixies                                             “Here Comes Your Man”
R.E.M.                                                 “Losing My Religion”
Stevie Ray Vaughan                               “Pride and Joy”

All tracks, except for “Still Alive” which is free, are available for purchase for $1.99 each on the in-game Rock Band Unplugged music store.

As an aside, if you like “Still Alive” I highly recommend checking out Jonathan Coulton’s website. He specializes in comedic songs based on videogames and gaming culture. Some of our family favorite are “Re: Your Brains“, “Creepy Doll” and “Code Monkey“. A dedicated fan and World of Warcraft player, Mike Spiff Booth has made a whole series of very funny and well done WoW machinima to Coulton’s songs.

It seems that the upcoming demo of the game will be available to players who pre-order the title before it hits general outlets. The details are sparse at the moment but this early access will likely be to the same content the rest of the world will get when the multiplayer demo hits Steam and Xbox Live, just a teensy bit earlier.

I understand Valve wanting to feed the L4D 2 hype, but as far as pre-order incentives go this one just seems to be a bit too lame duck to me. Offer an exclusive level or weapon or heck, maybe give us access to a member of the original game in our L4D 2 play, but giving out the same demo just earlier seems like an epic undersell of a much anticipated/debated sequel.

You can find team roster ratings and over all team ratings for the Cowboys, Eagles, Giants and Redskins online at the Madden NFL 10 Season Preview website.

AFC North will be the next division rated leading up to the Madden NFL 10 predictions for the 2009 NFL division winners, season MVP, and more August 3rd. Madden NFL series has been uncannily accurate at predicting the Superbowl winners for 6 years running. It predicted Pittsburgh Steelers’ win over the Arizona Cardinals this years at Pitt 28, Cards 24. The actual score was Pitt 27, Cards 23. I wouldn’t bet against  Madden NFL 10’s prediction that’s for sure.

Look for Madden NFL 10 on the Xbox 360, PS2,PS3, PSP and the Wii.

Battlefield 1943 features Frostbite’s next generation destruction technology which packs full Vehicle Warfare FPS multiplayer for up to 24 people into a 560MB download. I can never argue with getting more for less. Read more about the Frostbite engine and the worldwide community challenge to unlock the Coral Sea map after the break.

Battlefield 1943 is a critically-acclaimed First-Person Shooter (FPS) multiplayer game that puts players in the middle of a dogfight on land, sea or in the skies. The game introduces two thrilling new modes that can be played across four classic Battlefield tropical WWII maps: Wake Island, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima and Coral Sea. These maps are inspired by the award winning Battlefield 1942™ game, but have been redesigned and reengineered using the DICE destructible Frostbite™ engine which takes down walls, blockades and cover spots, leaving players with almost nowhere to hide. The game delivers endless hours of social online gameplay – an extraordinary value at just $15.

The Coral Sea map which is included in the game will be unlocked as part of a worldwide community challenge, where players will work together to reach 43M kills on both Xbox LIVE and the PlayStation Network. To help gamers reach that goal, up to 24 players can play together online in countless matches. They will have the freedom to compete by land, air and sea as either the US Marines or the Imperial Japanese Navy. Whether they choose to play the role of a rifleman crawling through the trenches, a steel-fisted tank commander, or a dog fighting ace pilot, gamers will have the power to rule the Battlefield.

Tracks from Green Day’s 21st Century Breakdown release will be coming to the Rock Band and Rock Band 2 Wii catalog. These three new tracks are a stark contrast with 8 choice original masters from artists participating in the RockStar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival. Behemoth, Cannibal Corpse, Marilyn Manson and Slayer are all on the list.

Tracks:

Behemoth                         “Conquer All”

(All tracks are original master recordings)

Tracks from festival artists Killswitch Engine and Bullet For My Valentine are already part of the extensive Rock Band DLC catlog. All these selections will be up for the PS3, Xbox 360 and the Wii the week of July 6th.

If you’re not familiar with Stardock’s digital distribution platform, Impulse, this would be a good time to give it a look. After all, they’re offering some great deals, like Call of Duty 4 for just $34.99 and Sins of a Solar Empire with its expansion for just $29.99.

The sale also includes titles like the complete Unreal series, Prototype, Red Faction Guerilla, and more. You can get your copy of Impulse and check out all the deals at ImpulseDriven.com

You can also see the full list of games on sale, along with their prices, after the break.

Here’s the full list of games Impulse has discounted for the weekend:

• Titan Quest – $3.99
• Red Faction Guerilla Pre-Order Bundle (RF1, RF2 and RFG) – $39.99 USD | $49.99 EUR | 34.99 GBP
• Sins of a Solar Empire + Entrenchment Bundle – $29.99
• Call of Duty 4 – $34.99
• Prototype – $44.99
• Street Fighter IV Pre-Order – $35.99
• King’s Bounty – $19.99
• Majesty Gold – $4.99
• Flock – $7.50
• Unreal Gold – $7.49
• Unreal II – $7.49
• Unreal Tournament 2004 – $11.29
• Unreal Tournament GotY – $7.49
• Unreal Tournament III – $22.49
• Unreal Pack – $33.79

The Sims is a highly controversial, emotionally charged subject in the Sines household. The kids and I really enjoy it while Shawn… he just realized he’s been channeling Yahtzee all this time.

Zero Punctuation is regular weekly feature on The Escapist.

Well that actually happened as the publishing giant reorganized a bit putting RPG mavens Bioware and long time MMO developers Mythic in the same division. While the two studios will remain mostly autonomous for the time being, they now both have a single reporting line up the chain to the big bosses and money men. That single leader? Bioware’s Dr. Ray Muzyka.

Dr. Muzyka’s ascencion to the head of the organization basically also points to the exit of Mythic’s longtime leader Mark Jacobs. According to Jacob’s blog the MMO pioneer is taking a sabatical for awhile and he leaves with a classy ‘I’m not going to dish on anything, I’m just going to thank folks and peacefully step aside’ sort of announcement – a classy response that we don’t get to see so often these days.

Regarding the future path of the now combined studio’s efforts, Dr. Muzyka indicated in an official response over on IGN that:

Anything’s possible. We can’t say it wouldn’t happen. There’s no active plans, currently to do that, but the teams at Mythic and BioWare I know from talking to all of them, they’re really excited about working together, so I think that fuels a lot of cool things.

Warhammer: Age of Reckoning is still holding strong in the WoW dominated MMO market while Bioware’s first effort – the much anticipated Star Wars: The Old Republic is still a ways off. Mythic has a lot of experience that could help the minds at Bioware pull off their vision of Star Wars and maybe even put a dent in the Warcraft numbers but only time will tell if this pairing will be all it seems.