tennapop

I really need to get back to this whole blogging thing again.  I think I will take another new approach though.  We’ll be back soon…  I promise.

Offer sacrifice at the throne of Jobu by clicking on the image above

The slow trickle of Diablo III class highlights has revealed a new page on Blizzard’s site: The Witch Doctor. Both its male and female versions offer a look akin to what you’d expect from something called a “Witch Doctor.” We imagine the monthly bill for chicken blood is through the roof.

Of course, we’ve seen the male version of the class before, but the look of the female character model is all new. There’s even some brief snippets of character abilities, if that’s your type of thing — so head on over to Blizzard’s site and check ‘em out.

[via joystiq.com]

According to a report out of consonant-heavy Swiss gaming site GamesMarkt, Switzerland’s parliament recently passed a law that could lead to an across the board ban on “violent” games being sold in the country. Apparently a proposal was inked last month that aimed to remove games which require “cruel acts of violence against humans and human-like creatures for in-game success” — a proposal that has apparently been passed by the Swiss National Council.

Since the initial proposal has passed, it’s said to now be up to the Swiss parliament exactly how the law is enacted. If you’re a Swiss gamer interested in challenging the new law, we encourage you to contact local politicians, as GamesIndustry.biz points out that “citizens are able to challenge any new law passed by parliament if they can show sufficient opposition to it.” Given the petitions we’ve seen some of you get into, we’re hoping this one will be a no brainer.

[via gameindustry.biz]

 

DJ Pauly D, MTV superstar and new Foursquare power user.

(Credit: DJ Pauly D’s Foursquare profile)

We already knew that in the heated battle among location-based social-networking start-ups, Foursquare already had Ashton Kutcher on its team. Turns out it also has “Jersey Shore” star “DJ Pauly D,” one of a handful of MTV and VH1 celebrities who are featured in a new marketing campaign that MTV Networks has inked with the pumped-up Foursquare.

(Serious question: Has this start-up jumped the shark already?)

The partnership tests a new kind of Foursquare account known as “Celebrity Mode,” in which a prominent Foursquare user (ahem, Ashton) can choose to share “check-ins” and location with either real-life friends or with fans. For DJ Pauly D (real name Paul DelVecchio), the first MTV Networks “celebrity” to pilot this feature, he could choose to publicly share the locations of nightclubs where he’s DJing or movie theaters where he’s showing up to a premiere. Additionally, the “tips” that have been added by celebrities to the Foursquare directory are visible to all followers rather than just personal friends.

We’ve asked Foursquare whether this will eventually be a special account that people can pay for.

“Celebrity Mode is a modified version of the standard Foursquare model which allows users to ‘follow’ a celebrity and lets high-profile users to choose whether check-ins are sent to inner-circle friends or to both friends and followers,” a release explained. “Foursquare users can also view tips that the celebrities they are following have left behind at places all over the world.”

Soon, this Celebrity Mode partnership will be rolling out with the stars of other MTV Networks reality shows, like “The Hills,” “The City,” and “The Real World: New Orleans.” There’s a legitimate reason to think that it could help Foursquare gain some mainstream traction: remember, Twitter was a hit with geeks several years ago, but didn’t start to break into the real world until celebrities like Kutcher and Oprah Winfrey started using it and spreading the word.

Already, Foursquare has signed deals with entertainment brands like Bravo TV, but its close competitor Gowalla has also been snapping them up with the likes of the Travel Channel. The two start-ups were in fierce competition for the limelight at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival (SXSWi) earlier this month, and after the annual digital-culture fest ended, there still wasn’t a clear winner.

[via cnet.com]

EDITORIAL

I have only posted this for the publicity of foursquare and the services they offer.  If you read this because the show, Jersey Shore was mentioned, please go kill yourself.  People are not really like this all over New Jersey.  Hell, half of the people on the show weren’t from the great state of New Jersey.  I, myself, am from there, and I have never once used the phrase “GTL”, nor have I fist pumped since the days of whooping it up to the Arsenio Hall Show.  Please, MTV, I beg you…  Do not ruin my great state by attaching these, hair gelling, ignorant, self-absorbed, greasy, horrible English speaking, wastes of space that call themselves the cast of the Jersey Shore.  Thank you.  That is all.

The new Eye-Fi “X2” series we saw at CES is hitting store shelves and FedEx trucks today, bringing with it 802.11n radios, Class 6 SD card speeds, an “Endless Memory” mode, and expanded storage. What’s perhaps even more interesting, however, is the fact that all Eye-Fi cards with an active hotspot account can now use AT&T’s WiFi, which includes Starbucks and McDonald’s in its ever-expanding grasp. The pricing tiers are pure Eye-Fi, of course, with the $50 Connect X2 offering JPEG uploads to sharing sites like Flickr, Facebook, and YouTube, along with 4GB of storage; the $100 Explore X2, which chews 8GB of capacity, and includes geotagging, uploading to the user’s own computer over a WiFi network, and a year of free hotspot service; and finally the Eye-Fi Pro X2, with 8GB of storage, JPEG and RAW uploads, and support for creating ad hoc WiFi connections with a computer, all for the low, low price of $150.

HERE IS THE OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE

EYE-FI DOUBLES SPEED AND CAPACITY IN NEW WIRELESS MEMORY CARD LINE-UP

Eye-Fi Also Doubles its Hotspots so Users Can Upload from more than 21,000 Hotspots

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., March 23, 2010 - Eye-Fi Inc., makers of the world’s first wireless memory card for digital cameras, today unveiled new wireless memory cards that deliver the next generation Eye-Fi experience of the award-winning Eye-Fi Pro X2. The “X2” family of Eye-Fi cards have faster-than-ever wireless photo and video uploads, improved performance, and virtually endless storage capacity with Endless Memory mode. The new product line-up is available today starting at $49.99.
Eye-Fi has also more than doubled its hotspot upload locations. Now, users of the Hotspot Access feature can upload photos and videos directly from their camera at any AT&T Wi-Fi location in the United States, including more than 6,500 Starbucks, and from Harborlink hotspots, including BP gas stations.

“Just in time for spring outings and summer road trips, we’re giving users the ultimate Eye-Fi experience – it’s faster and even more convenient,” said Jef Holove, CEO for Eye-Fi. “Uploading and sharing your memories with friends and family is as simple as finding a nearby Starbucks and turning on your camera. We do the rest.”

The Eye-Fi Connect X2 and Explore X2 join the Pro X2 as Eye-Fi’s new family of products, each with Class 6 performance, an 802.11n radio for significantly faster uploads and Endless Memory mode. All Eye-Fi Cards are available today at retailers including Best Buy, Amazon.com, Adorama, B&H and J&R.

Eye-Fi Connect X2 – At 4GB capacity, the Eye-Fi Connect X2 will automatically upload JPEG photos and videos to the computer and one of more than 25 online sharing sites, such as Flickr, Facebook, YouTube or Picasa, through a Wi-Fi network. MSRP: $49.99.

Eye-Fi Explore X2 – At 8GB of capacity, the Eye-Fi Explore X2 will automatically upload JPEG photos and videos to the computer and one of more than 25 online sharing sites. It offers lifetime automatic geotagging so photos and videos arrive at the user’s computer with location information already included to identify where the image was captured. Explore X2 also offers one year of hotspot access for uploading away from home at more 21,000 AT&T and Harborlink locations across the Unites States and through open hotspots. MSRP: $99.99.

Eye-Fi Pro X2 – Unveiled at CES and winner of CNET’s “Best of CES” award, the 8GB Eye-Fi Pro X2 will automatically upload JPEG and RAW photos and videos to the home computer, and will send them to one of more than 25 online sharing sites. It also allows users to create an ad hoc connection directly to their computer to wirelessly upload photos and videos while away from a wireless router. Like Explore X2, Pro X2 offers lifetime geotagging and one-year of hotspot access to enable uploads away from home at more than 21,000 AT&T and Harborlink hotspots and open hotspots. MSRP: $149.99.

Double the Hotspots Makes Uploading Even More Convenient
Beginning March 31, any existing or new Eye-Fi user with an active hotspot service plan can upload at more than 21,000 hotspots across the Unites States, including Starbucks, Hertz Rental Car locations, Marriot hotels and BP gas stations. Users simply walk into an AT&T or Harborlink location, turn on their camera, and photos and videos will automatically upload to their computer or favorite sharing Web site. Users don’t even need to have their computers with them. Users can also upload through any open hotspot with no user agreement page. For a complete map of supported hotspots, please visit http://www.eye.fi/how-it-works/features/hotspot-access.

Never Miss a Photo Opp with Eye-Fi’s “Endless Memory”
Eye-Fi’s new cards include the “Endless Memory” feature, which lets users choose to have Eye-Fi automatically makes space available on their memory card after photos and videos are safely uploaded to the computer or Web. When the card reaches the user’s pre-determined amount of space used, it will remove files that have been safely uploaded, beginning with the oldest – even when the card is not connected to a network. If files have not yet been uploaded, Eye-Fi will not remove them. This option can be set up in Eye-Fi Center.

Eye-Fi Center – Easier Storing and Sharing on Multiple Sites
All Eye-Fi users can download the new Eye-Fi Center desktop application that makes organizing and sharing photos and videos easier. Eye-Fi Center has a redesigned interface that offers new features and is easy to use. Users can drag and drop photos and videos to publish them easily to multiple online locations – even including photos and videos that weren’t taken with an Eye-Fi card. Users can download the software at http://support.eye.fi/downloads.
Eye-Fi has received numerous product awards including Mac Observer’s Editor’s Choice 2010 Award and Popular Photography’s 2009 Photography’s Outstanding Products (POP), and was named a CES 2010 Innovations Honoree. For more information, please visit www.eye.fi or follow us on Twitter @EyeFiCard.

About Eye-Fi
Founded in 2005, Eye-Fi is dedicated to building products and services that help consumers manage, nurture and share their visual memories. Eye-Fi’s patented and patent-pending technology wirelessly and automatically uploads photos and videos from digital imaging devices, including digital cameras and the iPhone, to online, in-home and retail destinations. Headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., the company’s investors include LMS Capital, Opus Capital, Shasta Ventures and TransLink Capital. More information is available at www.eye.fi.

[via engadget.com]

Here is a PAX 09 director interview for The Secret World.

The end time, a doomsday described in many different religions, isn’t a subject typically explored by massively multiplayer online games, which is a bit surprising.

Depending on which religion you look to for inspiration, a game based on the end of the world could include zombies, demons, supernatural phenomenon and could even take place in the next couple of years.

So I suppose it isn’t surprising that the still undated Funcom massively multiplayer online role-playing game The Secret World taps into the theoretical, theological end of everything we know.

And the best part: It has real, honest-to-god zombies. Not infected people.

While The Secret World kicks off with players starting in modern day versions of London, New York and Seoul, Korea, the bit I saw of the game earlier this month took place in the fictional New England town of Kingsmouth.

In The Secret World each location has what the game developers call its own “monster ecology” based on the mythology and lore of the area. It is a world, the developers tell me, heavily inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen King and H.P Lovecraft.

In the case of Kingsmouth, a sizable island town off the coast of Maine, evil seems very nautically themed. There are zombies coming up out of the ground and walking out of the ocean, hulking creatures that look a bit like something you’d see in Left 4 Dead, possessed machinery and nasty sea creatures.

While folk tales and mythology help to shape the enemies you will face in an area, the bigger point of The Secret World is to tell a story that players become engrossed in and try to figure out.

“Digging deeper is really what our story is about,” said Martin Harsheim Bruusgaard, lead designer for the game.” Stories and MMO RPGs traditionally don’t play well together. There has always been a conflict between the game mechanics in a way and telling a story and the perception seems that it is not possible. I think what Bioware is doing with The Old Republic and what we’re doing with this game could change that.

“Our game is a very fertile playground for telling a story. It’s a vast open playground for going around and being able to pick up these little jigsaw pieces and put them together on this giant canvas and try to figure out what this story is really about.”

Funcom’s approach to the game allowed them to create hundreds of fully-voiced characters, Bruusgaard said. All of The Secret World’s missions are introduced with full cinematics as well.

“Stories are the important part of the game for us,” said Ragnar Tornquist, the game’s creative director. “It feels really nice to have a purpose in the game world. In some MMOS you’re running around meeting random NPC number 37 and have to bring them some fish. It’s so much cooler to establish this relationship between the player character and the NPC and you’re learning about the relationships between the other NPCs. You become part of this group and try to help them out.”

Instead of worrying about leveling up your character in The Secret World, the big push is to unravel the game’s greater mystery and try to find increasingly powerful weapons. You also have a number of occult-like powers you can use, all of which automatically scale with the items you find.

While the game has hundreds of powers that can be used, a player can only use 14 at a time - seven active and seven passive.

Those abilities can be switched out at certain special locations, the team told me, allowing you to constantly adjust and customize how the character you are playing fights.

In one battle I witnessed involving four players against a giant junkyard man, one of the players was using an assault weapon, another stayed in the back healing, a third shot fire from his hands and a fourth used a flaming sword.

Bruusgaard pointed out that powers can combine to create new effects, even powers from two different players. This is done by allowing some powers to put friendly or enemy characters in special “states.” For instance, a player set an enemy on fire, putting it in the fire state, then another nearby character used a passive power which made the enemy explode as it died, showering nearby enemies with damage-inducing chunks of flaming enemy flesh.

Because the game has no levels, the game designers had to come up with other ways to keep players interested in playing the game.

That includes all of those powers, weapons and clothing and what they think is a much closer attention to detail in creating the world and the stories that drive it.

While the title as a whole isn’t meant to be a psychologically frightening game, there are moments that are meant to scare.

“When you are out in the open world with hundreds of people it can’t be psychologically scary,” Bruusgaard said. “When you go into dungeons and four player instances we have a more scripted experience. We use sound and scripting to create a more frightening experience.

“I dont think you can have an MMO that is constantly psychologically scary, because that’s emotionally draining and to do that for hours and hours would be terrifying.”

While a release date for The Secret World hasn’t yet been set, the team did drop this teaser trailer on me which seems to indicate we’ll be learning even more about the game later this week.

[via kotaku.com]

Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto may be toying with new ways to shake up The Legend of Zelda, adding more than just Wii MotionPlus support for the next adventure of Link. Is he also considering Wii Vitality Sensor-based gameplay?

While Miyamoto didn’t confirm whether the next Wii Zelda game would feature pulse-pounding, biometrics-based additions, he told Games TM that its “fun to think of ways in which we might apply that new technology to existing forms of gameplay – just like the way we are working on the new Legend Of Zelda together with Wii MotionPlus.”

“So maybe you might like to ask me to incorporate the Vitality Sensor into Zelda so that as you become more scared, the enemies become even tougher,” Miyamoto offered. That would be… interesting.

Nintendo hasn’t shown any games based on the new pulse oximeter sensor attachment for the Wii, but Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime promises that the device will “wow” us, telling Kotaku that we should expect “new and unique experiences” from the peripheral. Adding Wii Vitality Sensor support to a more mainstream title like The Legend of Zelda would definitely elicit some wows, especially if that means dropping Nunchuk control in favor of Vitality Sensor support.

Of course, that’s all conjecture, as Miyamoto may have been simply riffing with the Games TM guys about what he’d like to experiment with. We’ll know more after this year’s E3, when Nintendo plans to showcase both the Wii Vitality Sensor and The Legend of Zelda, perhaps at the very same time.

[via kotaku.com]

While Microsoft’s 250GB Xbox 360 hard disk is currently only available in North America as part of a console bundle, according to a new ad popping up on the 360 dashboard, that’s about to change.

This “Make More Room for Entertainment” advertisement popped up on the Xbox 360 dashboard today, urging console owners to head to a participating retailer and pick up a brand new standalone 250GB hard drive, complete with transfer cable for securing your data during the upgrade.

Unfortunately none of the retailers I’ve checked - GameStop, Amazon, or Best Buy - are currently participating, and the Xbox.com accessories page doesn’t have a listing for the drive by itself. Still, that’s definitely an advertisement for the drive, so I’d expect the lack of availability to be rectified shortly.

Since there are no retail listings for the drive, we still don’t know how much it will cost. The Japanese version is currently available for import at Play-Asia for $160, and the 120GB hard drive Microsoft sells in the states sells for $129.99, so one might expect a reasonable price somewhere in that range. We’ll let you know once we know for certain.

Thanks to Taylor for pointing out the ad!

Update: And we have a price! $129.99 for 250GB, the same price the 120GB was going for previously. Not a bad deal, all things considered.

[via kotaku.com]