World Of Warcraft: Cataclysm

Its the weekend before Cataclysm and I haven't mentioned anything about it really so I thought I'd post about it now. If you have been living in a cave for the past while and have no idea what I'm on about you may want to take a quick look at this:

Pretty cool. They have a more recent trailer that played at the start of the game when they first released a cataclysm patch.

But moving on.

New Races can have new classes. One that I looked at was the human hunter. Humans were my favourite race (were meaning I'm changing it to Worgen) and I thought it was pretty cool what they did with Northshire valley Horde spy's and the old fields have been burnt down. Sort of makes you feel like your getting straight into the action. BUT my favourite feature in Northshire has to be this:

That's right! A mail box! No more running to Goldshire to get any gold/heirlooms

The wow expansion is going to be released on Tuesday 17th December and Blizzard are going to flip the switch at Midnight so you can expect the amount of lag when everyone logs on. I have reserved a copy of mine in a shop and I'm going to collect it Tuesday morning I had already got the Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King boxes so I might as well make it 3 in a row. I didn't get the Original WoW box, I just paid for it of their site.

I was also able to get behind the huge waterfall in Northshire Valley. Before cataclysm you couldn't but now I was able to find a way...But one really cool thing I found was this

Look at it closely. Its a school of fish but look in the bottom right it has the name (TESTING) School of fish. There is also 2 camps with no one around...Spooky.

I then went over to the rocks where it leads back down and at night time. It looks awesome.

I didn't get to fish in the school of fish but I'm going to head back there soon and see if gives anything different.

But like I said Cataclysm is coming out on Tuesday. Here are some of the new Features:

• Two New Playable Races

• Level Cap Increased to 85

• Classic Zones Remade

• New High-Level Zones

• More Raid Content than Ever Before

• New Race and Class Combinations

• Guild Advancement

• New PvP Zone & Rated Battlegrounds

• Archaeology (Secondary Skill)

• Flying Mounts in Azeroth

And much, much more...


I haven't mentioned the goblins since I'm more of an Alliance side kinda guy. I do have horde characters but I never stick with them. I'm going to clear them and Just start with a Goblin and give both new races their own post.
Thats all for now. Thanks for Reading.

-Stretch

Off Topic:Tutorial: How to create a Signature

I know this isn't really gaming news or updates but I thought since many gamers are on some sort of forum that this would be a good way to help make the most out of their profile...

Friendly Greetings!
In this tutorial I'm going to show you how to create a signature for forums. You don't need to worry if you don't have the software
to do it everything will be explained.

Contents:
1: Software
2: How to download
3: Dimensions
4: Theme
5: Design

1: Software
You don't need to have the likes of Photoshop to create high quality signatures. There is loads of free software out there that will let you basically do the same stuff as Photoshop. The difference being PS has more tools and is really for more overly high detailed pictures.
We are going to use some software called GIMP. GIMP is short for the GNU Image Manipulation Program and GNU computer operating system
GIMP is 100% free and safe and has loads of the same tools that PS does.

2: How to Download
First of all goto: http://www.gimp.org/downloads/
and Hit the download link. It will lead you onto another site and the site should automatically let the download come up. Click save file and if says there its a "potentially unwanted program" just click download anyway. It came up for me but yet GIMP suggested the site and McAfee had a green mark on the page so It will be safe. Run it and then its done.
When you run it first it make take a little while to load but that's just because its the first time

3: Dimensions
Some Sites might have a limit but I wouldn't suggest having it huge anyway.
Lets just start of with a nice size.
In this case we are going to start with 400 by 150 (Width 400). This is all up to personal choice but I think that looks good. When you have 400 by 150 entered in click "Ok" and your box should expand into that size. There is a little icon at the bottom that will allow you to either zoom in or out.




4: Theme
Avatars and Signatures are ways of showing of you. Whether it be your gaming style or something that reflects you personally or it can even be about a game you like or have an interest in. Its entirely up to you.
I am just going to use a Image I found online as an example.

To add a Image click File ---> Open as Layer. This will open the image as a layer instead of replacing the current dimension. Use the select tool to move it around.(Select tool is on the second row. Third one from the right)









5: Design
Now that you have a basic image created your next step is to make it your own. GIMP offers loads of different filters to change the image. Let add text first. To add text click on the A icon on the GIMP tool window and click on the image
(Don't worry if its not exactly where you want it to be, You can move it later)

To change the font and the colour. The text tool has a second section at the bottom half of GIMP. Mine has been set to Sans but by clicking on the Aa button a list will appear with all different fonts. Find the right one for you and then move down. You'll see a bar of colour. This will be the colour of your text. Pick anyone you want. In this case I went for Red. To move the picture just click on the select tool again and hold left mouse button while dragging.

Done!

And yes. I have used the same picture as I did for the background :)


Finished Product...
Keep in mind I put a lot more time into my signatures. This was only a tutorial on how to do it.

Feel Free to leave feedback
Remember to Keep up with the main Blog page
http://stretchg.blogspot.com/

-S

Very Quiet...

No New games have been out recently that have caught my eye.
Its been very quiet... I tried the Darkfall trial there today and It was fun...but not the kind of pay per month fun. So I highly doubt I'll subscribe to it. I played Darkfall when it first came out and back then it was populated...Right now from what I can see...Its very low population and I think it has been since they Split it up into NA and EU servers.... I was able to run for about an hour or 2 up the map and I only saw 5 people...Then when I got to the place where I wanted to go... There was very low amount of people around the starting area...I was only able to get 3 ganks. Which is all I needed to help someone I had just met out with a quest some nice loot

but this isn't a darkfall post.
Lego Universe was just released the other day...Looks cool but yet again Pay per month. So I'm put of it.
The sooner wow cataclysm is out the better...

I have this week off so hopefully there will be a decent game to post about.

-S

The Warhammer Scandal

Hello all,
I have recently came across the whole EA story. Basically for the people who didn't hear about it yet EA was letting off a good couple of people in November. One guy who knew he was being let go wrote a Blog about the secrets of Warhammer Online. He tells all the secrets, Why it was going to fail from the start and lets us know about how stupid EA really are.

Jeff Hickman, the producer, was put in charge of a $50 million project with no previous experience.

It also mentions he was promoted. So I guess you can say he had some experience. Except...He was customer support *cough* I wonder who's bright Idea it was to do that?
He also goes on to mention that 1 million copies of Warhammer Online were sold when it was released and a month later it only had 300k subs lol

The game wasn’t done, but EA gave us a deadline and threatened the leaders of Mythic with pink slips. We slipped so many times, it had to go out.

So far we've learnt from EA that:
1): Customer Support managers make "good producers"
2): Threatening a smaller company to bring out a game by a deadline when its not finished makes the game suddenly ready?

I'm not going to copy all his blog.
The full story is at http://ealouse.wordpress.com/2010/10/12/hello-world/

This is why more people should ditch EA.
Companies like valve take time to fix bugs in games and they don't rush it.
An example of this would be TF2 or Day of Defeat Source, Both very good games. Very successful and if there is any bugs Valve will bring out a fix for it as soon as they can.


Feel free to post feedback!

-Stretch

Guild Wars 2

In this post I'll be taking a look at: Guild Wars 2.

First of all here is a Cinematic Trailer you should check out first


Actual Gameplay Video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGPZJJdRVUI

This game looks pretty cool. I didn't like the first guild wars one bit so hopefully this will be different...at least it can't get any worse lol. They have not set a release date and to quote what they put on the site:

When it's finished. Guild Wars 2 is the largest project ArenaNet® has ever undertaken, and we want to make sure we take the time to do it right.

That's the way all new MMO's should be done because I find that they release it on a certain date no more than a week later I need to download this huge patch to fix a numerous amount of bugs that should have been tested in the first place.
The game is not going to be pay per month. You just download it and play which is a system becoming more popular. Its definitely one to check out.

Website: http://www.guildwars2.com/en/
FAQ: http://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/game-faq/

Also note that at the top of their site, You can sign up for the news letter :)

Free MMO: Allods Online

Greetings.

A friend of mine pointed me in the direction of a Free MMO called Allods Online.
The game is sort of like Runes of magic where you can play it free till the end but you might need to spend a big of money to get your end of game armor. They aren't really money grabbing from what I've seen so far but I haven't played it to the end.
I started of as a Imperial which is kind of like the Horde in wow or the chaos in warhammer online.

On the Imperial side they have some pretty cool classes.
Here are a few:

Race:Arisen
Archetype/Class:Psionicist
This guy uses mental attacks. One move you get at the start "mental link" gives you options to cause the target periodic damage or! You can get moves which blasts the target taking loads of damage.

Race: Xadaganians 

Archetype/Class: Paladin         

I tried this class out for about 4 levels and 

I liked it. From what I can tell you randomly 

get a barrier to protect you from damage, 

Which is a big help for the likes of tanking

But the one (in my opinion) which looks the coolest is the Arisen Healer. 

He kinda looks like a pharaoh.

(Take note that these are all the end of the game gear.)

I tried this class out and I learnt about the talent tree the game has. 

You assign points into moves. So you basically get 4 starting moves and if you want to actually make him a healer. You assign your talent point into a healing skill. Which your able to do at around Lv 4 which is just past the tutorial.

If you want to sign up, Like I said its totally free and worth checking out

EU Servers: http://en.allods.gpotato.eu/

American Servers: http://allods.gpotato.com/

They have a client that downloads the game but when a friend and I tried to download it from the EU site it had a corrupt file so I suggest you download it from sites like Gamers Hell 

EU Client: http://www.gamershell.com/download_60910.shtml

The EU worked for me but

I haven't tried to download the NA Client but I found this URL on Gamers Hell

US Client: http://www.gamershell.com/download_58724.shtml

Feel free to post feedback. 

-S

Aion: Assault on Balaurea Release Date!!

Hey guys,
Went onto the Aion Website earlier today and noticed this headline:

NCsoft Reveals Release Date for Aion’s Highly Anticipated Free Expansion – Aion®: Assault on Balaurea

That's right!... The new expansion featuring pets, new weapons and level cap raised is here!

Here is what was said:

Today, NCsoft, the world's premier publisher and developer of Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMOs), unveiled the official release date for Aion: Assault on Balaurea, the next exciting chapter in Aion that entrenches players into a rich storyline in which their actions will determine the fate of the world. Aion: Assault on Balaurea releases digitally to PCs in North America and Europe on Sept. 7, 2010, however, players looking for retail boxed copies of the full game featuring exclusive in-game pets will find them at select retailers in North America on Sept. 7 and on Sept. 10 in Europe.

In Aion: Assault on Balaurea, the exciting new chapter of Aion, characters have the ability to align together to launch massive counter assaults against the invading Balaur on their homeland while experiencing new and updated instances and zones, an increased level cap, new weapons and items, new skills and added flight mechanics. Characters will not be alone as they explore the new areas, as Aion introduces functional pets equipped with in-game benefits.

Unlike any MMO before it, Aion is a uniquely crafted online gaming experience where flight offers much more than just a way to gracefully explore the landscape - it is a strategic and integral part of combat, quests, and exploration. Players will use flight to dive into battle and plunge through thousands of unique, story-driven quests, all while trying to save and control a world literally shattered in half from centuries of brutal conflict.

Source: http://uk.aiononline.com/board/notices/view?articleID=756&page=

I can't wait for this to come out!
I saw a video on youtube a while back that showed player housing. It doesn't say anything here about it but we'll have to wait and see.

 

Browser Pong!

Greetings!
I was sorting my bookmarks out and I came across one called "Browser Pong" that I forgot about, its pretty cool. It actually turns your browser into a game of pong.
Check it out:

http://stewdio.org/pong/

I know it says it on there but I'm throwing this in anyway
P = Play
Q = stop (an important key to remember)


Enjoy!

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