Mid-Week Notes: Star Trek, Mass Effect, and PAX East

So, a lot of gaming is going on currently. Star Trek Online finally released the other day and I was there to greet it with an awkward out-stretched hand of uneasy peace. Cryptic has a lot of work to do if they want to keep Star Trek fans of any generation happy, but it can only get better from this point onward, right? Maybe I’m just an optimist, I guess. But if STO doesn’t put out, I always have Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 to fall back on! ME2 does for ME what Diablo 2 did for Diablo, in the sense that the sequel takes all the good out of the original and makes it ten-times better. I’m enjoying my time back on the Normandy and I can only play through the game over and over waiting for the conclusion to this fantastic space opera BioWare was gracious enough to share with the world.

On the other side of that, PAX East has sold out of 3-day passes! But lucky me I have connections and will be attending with some old guy who doesn’t want to grow up quite yet whom we’ll just call “Dad”. So, you can expect some posts about my trip to PAX East coming in late march, and hopefully I won’t fail as much as my other projects. Yeah.

In other, blog-related news. I need a new theme. I bore of looking at this one. And I need a logo. The gear is not really lazy, is it?

First Post of 2010, Bethesda Working on “World of Warcraft type MMO”

So, I know it’s been almost 3 weeks with no word from me but trust me, there’s not a whole lot you missed. Yes, it’s 2010, and we have a little less than 2 years until our absolute destruction but in the meantime, did you know Bethesda missed it’s big reveal of the Elder Scrolls MMO in 2009? I know, I didn’t know either! According to VG247, “Development on the game has apparently been ongoing since late 2006, said the documents, with “tens of millions of dollars” invested and “close to a hundred people” working on it.” To add to that, there was another slip up from book publisher Waterstones saying the next Elder Scrolls game would take place 200 years after Oblivion.

Whoops.

But we already know of Zenimax, Bethesda’s parent company, opening a MMO division headed by DAoC’s own Mike Firor who have been working an an unannounced title. Well this is it. Maybe.

News Flash! AVATAR Makes A Lot of Money Opening Weekend! Guild Wars Mortgages My Soul

Thank you Captains Obvious and Duh. So, yes, AVATAR was released this past Friday and despite harsh winter conditions (at least here on the East Coast) people flocked to their local theater en masse. Over the weekend the film managed to rake in $232.2 Million, and for a movie that cost $300m that’s pretty damn good. Not record breaking, but pretty. Damn. Good.
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Dungeons & Dragons Has The Touch, Has The Power

Multi-touch surfaces have been around for a little while, and still has a way to go before being used by everyone for everyday needs, but already I can see no other greater use for such a device other than to play DnD on it.

Obviously still a work in progress, this demo comes to us courtesy of the team Surfacescapes at the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University, and it shows off a lot the potential fun that could be had by anyone interested enough. Of course you’d have to get pass the price of such a table, but it’d be totally worth it. Totally.

Guild Wars 2, The Artbook That Steals Souls

ArenaNet has finally let loose of its Guild Wars 2 art book that was originally only given out at this past PAX! All 127 and 1 glorious pages of fantastic concept art for Anet’s upcoming MMO, Guild Wars 2, can now be yours, if you pay for it, as it will not, I repeat, NOT, be bundled with the Collector’s Edition of the game, which has left me to ponder, “What could they possibly throw into the CE to make it worth while?” The original Guild Wars art book was the only reason I got the Prophecies CE on the first day of release! I suppose we shall soon see, but if you want to wait and look at something else, after the bump are 5 pages from the book I need to go buy!

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