Common Paradox Tech Blog

Aside from one obscure little game whose name escapes our memory at the moment, WarCraft has been out of action since WarCraft 3: The Frozen Throne’s release back in 2003. Don’t take this world without WarCraft to mean that Blizzard’s completely iced the idea of a fourth entry in the popular fantasy RTS series, though. Just be prepared to wait a tick before scratching your orc-commanding, night elf-outsmarting itch.

"Warcraft 4 is certainly something that gets talked about on a pretty regular basis," Blizzard’s J. Allen Brack said in an interview with AusGamers. "While I think we’re all excited about a Warcraft 4, in concept, [the WarCraft 3 team is] going to finish up StarCraft 2, and then they’re going to work on the two StarCraft expansions that we’ve announced, so they’re booked for the next few years."

And though he stopped just short of nailing the team to the project, Brack did say that "it does sort of make sense."

Another Blizzard game, another tremendous wait. But at least we can while away the, well, years until Diablo III’s launch with Torchlight. As for WarCraft 4, though… hey Runic, ever think about making an RTS?

75th Trombone writes “I’m a fan of several old PC games — the Myst series, StarCraft, Diablo, etc — with 2D graphics that run at a low, fixed resolution. These games all look horrible on modern LCDs. If you run them at their original resolution, they’re tiny, and if you upscale them they get all sorts of blurry, pixelly smoothing artifacts. My ideal goal is to run these games at exactly double their original resolution — running 640 x 480 games at 1280 x 960, for example — so that each original pixel takes up exactly a 2 x 2 block of screen pixels, yielding graphics that are perfectly crisp and decently big. I’ve tried arcane settings in graphics card drivers (new and old), I’ve tried forcing the OS to run at a given resolution, and I’ve tried PowerStrip, all to no avail. Short of writing a new, modern engine for my favorite games, is there a reasonable solution to this problem?” There have been many community-supported graphical overhauls of classic games — feel free to share any you know to work well.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The elevator up from hell sure is taking its time. We imagine that Mass Effect’s Shepard — even with his eternal patience for cramped spaces, boring music, and upward mobility — would be cursing up a storm by now if he were aboard that infernal machine. So just imagine how poor old Diablo must feel – especially now that the not-so-loveable lug may have a “few years” left before he finally surfaces.

A recent Blizzard presentation listed Diablo III as arriving in the “next few years,” along with StarCraft II’s expansions and Blizzard’s next massively multiplayer cash cow. In store for “next year,” meanwhile, are StarCraft II and WoW: Cataclysm. The bottom line? No loot-grabbing and Satan-stabbing until – at the earliest – 2011. Unless, of course, Diablo III goes into full-on beta mode next year, but we’re not getting our hopes up.

Honestly Diablo, at this point, we’re thinking you should’ve taken the stairs.

Look, it’s the box art from Star Trek Online (along with new screens and impressions)! Also read on for the latest infotainment regarding Diablo III, a Diablo clone, the Avatar game and, of course, Modern Warfare 2.

Even More Star Trek Online Screens
Confession: I downloaded these off Atari’s press site, just for my own personal “use.”

Star Trek Online Preview: Ignoring Regulation
Btw, Jason Chen and I are also very actively begging our way into a press beta. Wish us luck.

LEGO Rock Band Review: Redefining The Rock Block
Spoiler: It’s like every other Rock Band title, but with LEGO.

Avatar: The Navi Side Of The Story
Which will lose more money, the movie or the game?

StarCraft II Expansions, Diablo III Coming in “Next Few Years”
Just like I predicted, Diablo III won’t be here until 2011…at the earliest. Being right can suck.

Diabloriffic Torchlight Coming To Retail
So since Diablo III will take so long, feel free to sleep around a bit.

Modern Warfare 2 Sells Nearly Five Million Copies In A Day
That’s a launch of over $300 million in revenue.

Borderlands Sequel A “No-Brainer”
My siren is level 28. Frucci’s hunter is like level bajillion.

They Made The Wii Bowling Ball, And They’re Not Done Yet
There’s plenty more plastic crap where that came from!

Oh…and as a little bonus, the worst lines in the history of video games:

[Today's Big Thing]

bgweber writes “The 2010 conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE 2010) will be hosting a StarCraft AI competition as part of the conference program. This competition enables academic researchers to evaluate their AI systems in a robust, commercial RTS environment. The competition will be held in the weeks leading up to the conference. The final matches will be held live at the conference with commentary. Exhibition matches will also be held between skilled human players and the top-performing bots.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Initially said to be making a nuclear strike on our free time in 2009, StarCraft II’s beta test has officially shoved off into the murky, fog-of-war shrouded depths of 2010.

StarCraft II producer Chris Sigaty made the announcement during a presentation at Russian games expo IgroMir, much to the chagrin of the year 2009, which – after providing chronological sanctuary for a global economic crisis and the tragic deaths of multiple beloved celebrities – needed some sort of positive highlight to keep it from going down in history as the worst year ever. When reached for comment, 2010 had only this to say: “Neener-neener-neener.”

For the time being, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty is still set to launch in the Spring of 2010. Could another delay be just around the corner, though? We sure hope not – but even if Blizzard decides to take its sweet time putting the finishing touches on its space-faring sequel, it’s not like early 2010 is hurting for major game releases.

It’s like a real-life Starcraft perk for mechanics repairing armored vehicles: Marine mechanics assisted by augmented-reality goggles with a heads-up display repaired light armored vehicles up to 46 percent faster.

The HUD replaces technical manuals on a bulky laptop with floating instructions, labels and oh yes, 3D models of tools right in front of the mechanic. The wrist-mounted interface is run off an Android-powered G1 (which looks much cooler as gauntlet). Apparently Android’s seeing a lot of use as a tool of war. You can check out a video of it here. [Technology Review via PopSci]

An anonymous reader tips news that Blizzard will be requiring all World of Warcraft players to use Battle.net accounts to log into the game starting on November 11th. After that time, players who don’t switch will be unable to play the game. Some time after the transition is complete, players will be able to “participate in cross-realm chat in World of Warcraft, create real-life friends lists, and communicate across different games.” More details on the new Battle.net and what it will do are available in our Blizzcon wrap-up and interviews from August. Naturally, the idea that the new Battle.net is getting closer to deployment has sparked speculation that the StarCraft II beta might come along soon.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Here is a troubleshooting tip from me to you—stabbing random 15-year old girls on the street will not fix your internet connection. Unfortunately, this advice comes to late for one troubled Swedish Starcraft player.

Apparently, the 18-year old kid flew into a rage a few months ago when his connection dropped during an online game. He decided that the only remedy was to skip all of the traditional troubleshooting techniques and go right to stabbing an innocent girl walking down the street. Fortunately, this completely insane act of random violence did not end as bad as it could have—the girl managed to escape with wounds that are not life threatening. As for her attacker, he is currently spending some downtime at a psychiatric hospital with an attempted manslaughter charge in the works.

Clearly, this is one disturbed individual we are talking about here. I mean, a rational person would have yelled at his modem and smacked it around with tears streaming down his face right? [Metro via SK Gaming via Crunchgear]