This is the other major bit news out of Blizzcon.

Diablo III is offered free!*

*If you subscribe to World of Warcraft for 12 months.

If you had an active or inactive subscription on the 18th October 2011. New accounts can’t get it. More details on the deal are here.

Beta access to Mists of Pandaria is also part of the deal.

Oh you get a free World of Warcraft in-game mount too : Tyrael’s Charger

I view this as a smart move from Blizzard. It looks generous and it holds up flagging World of Warcraft subscriber numbers.

But it’s not so generous as it might appear.

Blizzard can clawback any ‘losses’ via the long 12-month subscription and the extra pressure get the World of Warcraft Mist of Pandaria expansion, since you’re paying for the subscription anyway. There will also be opportunity for making money from purchases of Diablo III expansions and other merchandise (digital or otherwise). This will also increase Blizzard’s profits made via the real money auction house in Diablo III.

Still it’s a deal which will appeal to many especially those already committed to World of Warcraft.

Blizzcon is on and there’s basically two bits of important news.

The first is the new expansion with a new Chinese styled continent. Now this might be a smart move but from here it all falls apart into a dreadful series of cringes.

The continent is called Pandaria. Oh-kaaaay. To fit the new race, the…. Panderan… and a new class the.. uhm Monk. Groan. Yes this is Kung Fu Panda cloned to hell. One waits to see if there is a commercial agreement or a pile of litigation coming.

There’s a 5 level increase to level 90 and new content including a vanity pet battle system and challenge modes. They want to renew Horde vs Alliance but I rather suspect they will shake it up instead. The expansion is titled Mists of Pandaria and 5 year olds will probably love it.

You’ll be forgiven if you think this video is a joke or hoax at first, I certainly did.

Humble Bundle is on again this time with Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle. More a single game than a bundle but if you decide to pay more than the average (currently $US4.56) you will also get the Humble Frozenbyte Bundle.

If you’re not familiar with Humble Bundle it’s a great value way to get good games, including on Mac and Linux platforms at a price you can decide for yourself.  The games are DRM-free.  It also supports charity.

Update: Trauma has been added to the bundle.  It a title new to my knowledge which seems to be about a young woman’s experiences.

Update 2: SpaceChem has now also been added to the bundle.

I am quite a fan of the Gothic series of role playing games. Or perhaps it should now be called the Risen series, we shall see. Gothic is wonderfully gritty, deep, exploratory and very much encourages actual role play. The Gothic series is very much up in the air at the moment and quite possibly dead. Arcania, dubbed Gothic 4 for marketing purposes, was not a Gothic. It was a barely passable action game. The expertise seems to have moved over to the Risen team so hope is hardly dead, it just has a different name.

I greatly enjoyed Gothic 3, indeed I still enjoy it although I admit it has plenty of flaws and is certainly aging now. With the Community patch 1.74 of course. Without it the rather numerous bugs, which long plagued the series, are quite a pain.

I was looking around the World of Gothic site which is pretty much the go to place for the series and discovered there existed an ‘enchanced’ edition of the disastrous Gothic 3 – Forsaken Gods game. Reviews caned it very badly and for good reason I avoided giving it a go. But what if this enhanced edition lifted it into the good enough level? The enhanced edition is done by the same people who did the Community Patch for regular Gothic 3. That’s quite a good thing and GamersGate had it going cheap last weekend so I grabbed it and gave it a go.

Oh boy.

Haven’t finished. Possibly never will.

Barely started. I will grant the experience was pretty much bug free. I shudder to imagine what the game must have been before the patch. It’s so very sloppy. The voice acting is enough to induce cringes and the attitude of your avatar in conversations makes you wonder if he’s off his meds.

So then I must mull what I have until Risen 2 – Dark Waters and hope to hell it is at least as good as the original Risen. I saw there was an extended mod for Gothic 3. Perhaps that’s worth a go.

Really liking the look of Legend of Grimrock. Having played the old Dungeon Master and Eye of the Beholder series this is pure nostalgia to me but comes with much more polish and beauty. You can see what they have done with it so far:

Basically a fantastic dungeon romp. Out sometime this year they hope on Windows and later on other platforms.

I found an abandoned mine shaft! Expanded my original world past the 1.7 creation zone to spawn fresh new dirt and found one fairly soon. As luck would have it I popped right next to a lava spout and chest. No zombies will get me from that direction. But the chest beckoned so I cut the flow of lava and had a look. A lot of bread and a lonely iron bar. Stairs led up into what really needs to be emphasised as a labyrinth of tunnels and shafts. As one expects the shafts let things fall down. And spiders can climb up too. There’s a lot of nooks and crannies for you and the mobs to get stuck on and hide. That makes exploring pretty risky especially with those spiders. Did I mention the cave spiders?

left of the breakthrough flows antimob glowy stuff

This particular mine shaft is split in two by a modest ravine (for a ravine).

Here and there a bit of light shines through from the few torches that are placed as part of the mine and the lava flows. There’s quite a bit of ore mostly of coal, iron and gold. Broken up lines of rail are also on some of the tunnels. Later, I will reap those resources. Later because the first thing to do is make it a bit safer. More torches can reduce the problem with all the usual spawn-in-the-dark mobs (three creepers very nearly got me) but there were two cave spider generators near each other and possibly more especially on the other side of the ravine. They do spawn those little 1×1 monsters pretty damn quick. The real problem is the poison which means you have to keep well fed and try not to attract another one soon after a bite. I destroyed one of the generators but would like to keep the others for a spawn grinder. Somehow.

many views look much like this...

I wonder if I could find a stronghold now. From what I gather that might take quite some doing or cheating.

So at last Minecraft’s Adventure Update 1.8 (now 1.8.1) is upon us. It’s a really substantial update as expected so not everything will be covered here. Nor, it seems, was everything included and update 1.9 points to filling a lot of those gaps. Such as adding boss mobs to Strongholds and people to villages.

Minecraft now has animated startup screen and a few more options. The main new option relates to creation mode (as opposed to the more usual survival mode) which allows flying, unlimited resources and instant mining. I guess this could be called a true sandbox mode.

Generated a new world to have a look around for the big world additions. Namely;

• Villages
• Abandoned Mineshafts
• Ravines
• Strongholds

The first world was an island more barren the Minecraft’s survival mod and surrounded by lots and lots of water. Probably an Ocean biome. Delete. New World Regen. Found the Vines almost immediately hanging off trees, apparently they can grow too if you transplant them. This was one of the new biomes, in this case swamp and you can see more mushrooms there too. There are also Ocean and Mountain biomes and all of them can be much larger now.

Ran around looking. I knew the Strongholds were rare (3 per map!!) but the others hmm, who knows. Spent the night up a pillar of quality dirt. My first sighting of the inestimable Endermen. They work pretty much as advertised. Frozen while looking at them once you look away they are upon you pretty damn quick, but not up a pillar They do shake a bit and plenty of them spawn. Notch and team did a good job. They do do convey a sense of spooky. My only strong worry with these though is the damage they will do to my structures by picking up blocks. Endermen drop Ender Pearls which have no current use.

Yes they are after me

A few creeper explosions and a hop or two away I found one of the ravines. A nice addition, they really are enormous and that lets sunlight, lava, water stream in.

I spent quite some time looking until I discovered by using seed ’666′ or ‘Lol’ a Village will spawn near your own spawn in spot. The 666 village is pretty borked you can see it for yourself if you use the seed. Villages look very European. They include small farming plots, water wells, backyards, several types of homes and sometimes a tower or smithy. The smithy has lava and a couple of furnaces.

This is the borked 666 Village

Naturally I fell in the well. Not advised without a pickaxe.

If I find the other two structures (Abandoned Mineshafts and Strongholds) with the new Cave Spider and Silverfish mobs I will share that too. Both are apparently rich in resources making the dangers worth it.

This new Cave Spider native to the mine shafts poisons and can fit through 1×1 spaces. The silverfish seem to pretend to be stone blocks and can swarm you with numbers. They might be a bit spooky in themselves.

There’s a new food system where food no longer heals directly but fills a food bar which heals you over time if over 80% full. Most foods are now stackable. There’s now raw beef dropped from cows which can be cooked to steak and raw chicken from… chickens which can be cooked too. Eating raw food can cause a kind of food poisoning which isn’t too severe but it is more efficient to cook food. There’s melons which can be farmed. Pumpkins can now be farmed too.

The combat system has also been changed. Bows can be charged up over 3 steps in under 1 second. Critical hits can be delivered by hitting a mob while falling or if you are above a mob. The main thing is the experience bar though which levels up by collecting glowing balls which drops from mobs you kill. I yet have no idea what significance this has currently.

Lighting has changed with the colour determined by the dominant source. White for sunlight, blue for moonlight and red for other sources. The moonlight blue is a serious throwback to old movies.

There’s also other new items.

• Stone bricks
• Slabs and stairs, for both regular bricks and stone bricks.
• Fence gates
• Glass panes which work much like doors and are thin
• Iron bars, perfect for holding the inlaws.

Overall the Adventure Update is a great addition and can help encourage more exploration outside the walled comfort zone.

Update: Ironically it looks like Bethesda’s forum has had another security breach on the 12th of this month.  A full password reset has been conducted by the company.

One of the games I’m looking forward to which is not even slightly indie, is Skyrim, the latest in the Elder Scrolls Series from the famed software house, Bethesda. This role-playing game due on 11th November this year and I think Skyrim will hit that target.

There’s a collector’s edition at $AU199.99 in Australia which is around $US207. However in the US it’s $US149.99 showing us all once again how often and much Australia is ripped off by the games publishing industry. It’s not a bad kit as far as collector’s editions go with an artbook, making of Skyrim DVD and statue.

Apparently the character most desired by fans was the Dunmer thief and it looks like they’re in from this screenshot.

Zaldir on the forums of Bethesda has compiled quite a nice list of all the features and details of the upcoming game. It’s well worth checking out as the detail is staggering including information about the dragon shouts.

h/t SystemLink Multi

MineCon 2011 has been announced for 18-19th November 2011 at Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.  You can get your ticket for $US99.  Notch claimed Mojang will lose money on it, not sure why.

Included are;

• Official Minecraft launch
• Keynote speeches (including one by our very own Notch)
• Build contests
• Breakout classes with all different Minecraft topics
• Costume contests
• Exhibits by leading gaming and Minecraft related companies
• Meeting friends from around the world
• Commemorative merchandise

Terraria has been updated to 1.0.6. There’s a bunch of significant changes including 4 new mobs much more crafting including a grandfather clock and toilet?! There are keys and presumably locks to use them with. Mud and ash no longer fall due to gravity

Loads of changes on the interface front. I’ll have to play it out to get a real feel for it but I am confident it will be an improvement.

There’s core gameplay changes too. There’s a difficulty level selectable on character generation. Now fighting can yield critical hits. There’s also debuff/time effects such as poisoning and curses.

As promised potions have been nerfed. They heal less and have a cooldown. To balance that we’re supposed to heal by not being hit for a while. Mana also regenerates automatically.

More options when making your characters along with the extra items and interface changes should improve this game’s cosmetic side a bit.

For the full 1.0.6 Changelog see here.

I will add more if there’s anything interesting once I’ve actually played it for a bit.

Update 1: Very cool improvements. You can make ale with the keg and a mug crafted from sand. Ale makes you hit harder but gives less defence. A cooking pot lets you make soup which gives a stat buff.

The interface includes a trash now and ammo slots which is great. You can also see how much ammo you have to use. Be careful with using <shift> when emptying your bags into a chest. It goes into the trash instead.

Update 2: Quite a few bugs in this update which isn’t surprising given the update’s scope.  A fix (1.0.6.1) is due next week.  Things that are not bugs are also mentioned in their post.