Audio trouble again this week *sigh*, but we will do our best to work through it. What I managed to save I should have posted soon. We didn't cover everything in our notes but at least we have the notes..
....Russ
PC Love -
Game topics from the week.
EverQuest House of Thule....
....is the seventeenth expansion of the ground breaking EverQuest franchise. Now in its unprecedented twelfth year, EverQuest continues to add immersive game play, captivating storytelling and exciting worlds to its legacy, now set in a never-before-seen dreamland full of mystery and adventure. House of Thule offers an expansion rich in content and packed with game-changing features including a level cap increase and the addition of player housing, which new players, veterans and MMO fans will relish. http://www.everquest.com/everquest.vm
"Halo: Reach," the highly anticipated follow-up in the popular gaming series, will hit stores at midnight, Sept. 14, in more than 25 countries, and retailers around the world are gearing up for late-night launch events. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2369051,00.asp
The first "Halo" game made its debut in 2001, and the franchise includes follow-ups "Halo 2," "Halo Wars," and "Halo 3: ODST." Microsoft released a beta version of "Halo: Reach" in May, which attracted more than 2.7 million players who logged more than 16 million hours of game play.
Fans can line up at tens of thousands of retailers tonight to get their hands on the game at 12:01am local time. For those in New York City and other major cities, however, Microsoft will be going the extra mile with several star-studded launch events.The standard edition of "Halo: Reach" will retail for $59.99, while Limited and Legendary editions will sell for $79.99 and $149.99, respectively. The Legendary version includes a 10-inch, hand-painted statue of the Noble Team, the Spartan soldiers featured in the game.
Microsoft is also offering an Xbox 360 Limited Edition "Halo: Reach" bundle that includes the 250GB Xbox 360 console, two limited edition wireless controllers and a standard copy of "Halo: Reach" for $399.99.
“This Software is licensed to you, not sold.”
While the US Supreme Court’s 102-year-old "first-sale" doctrine says that copyright holders can't prevent consumers from reselling or renting a product after an initial sale, the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a 2008 decision affirming Vernor's right to sell the used software, ruling that Autodesk’s contract made it clear that the rights to install its programs were being licensed rather than sold. http://www.next-gen.biz/news/court-ruling-threatens-used-game-sales
The ruling aims to distinguish between when a piece of software is sold and when it is merely licensed, with the user potentially unable to resell if it's the latter.
Many other popular software programs already installed on home and office computers are covered by licensing agreements using similar language to Autodesk's programs, Beck said."That means the infrastructure already is in place for other software makers to say their customers don't really own those programs," he said. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100910/ap_on_hi_te/us_tec_software_resale
b) Game of the week:
Guild Wars 2- NCSoft/ArenaNet
In our new MMO Manifesto video, ArenaNet Studio Lead Mike O'Brien and key creators explain how Guild Wars 2 will defy MMO conventions and create a new kind of game - free from boring grind and static, unchanging worlds. Loaded with incredible gameplay footage, the MMO Manifesto video charts a bold new direction in gaming.
Personal interaction - Your character's story reflects your interest and your choices - no two players will have the same experience.
One of the challenges of a massively-multiplayer game is that in being inclusive to a vast number of people, it loses a lot of the personal interaction that makes single-player RPGs so much fun. When you're looking at the games on the store shelf, it seems you have only two options - a game that you can play with your friends, or a game that has a satisfying personal story. The Guild Wars 2 design team believes that a game should have both
http://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/personal-stories/personal-story-overview/
In Guild Wars 2, our event system won't make you read a huge quest description to find out what's going on. You'll experience it by seeing and hearing things in the world. If a dragon is attacking, you won't read three paragraphs telling you about it, you'll see buildings exploding in giant balls of fire, and hear characters in the game world screaming about a dragon attack. You'll hear guards from nearby cities trying to recruit players to go help fight the dragon, and see huge clouds of smoke in the distance, rising from the village under siege. http://guildwars2.com/en/the-game/dynamic-events/dynamic-events-overview/
Environmental Weapons
So the weapons you're currently holding in your hands determine your first five skills. Breaking a barstool over the head of a rowdy bar patron can yield a chair leg that can be used to great effect as a club. http://guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/part-two/
In Guild Wars 2, we’re going even further to make the out-of-combat experience a role playing experience by introducing “personality” as a player character role. How you respond to other characters develops and changes your personality over time, letting you affect how the game treats you. Personality is your character’s attitude toward others; it grows and changes as you play through your personal story and as you adventure in the persistent world.
c) PC Retro:
The 7th Guest -
The 7th Guest, produced by Trilobyte and released by Virgin Games in 1993[3], is an FMV-based puzzle video game. It was one of the first computer video games to be released only on CD-ROM. The 7th Guest is a horror story told from the unfolding perspective of the player, as an amnesiac. The game received a great amount of press attention for making live action video clips a core part of its gameplay, for its unprecedentedly large amount of pre-rendered 3D graphics, and for its adult content.
Rock n Roll -
Music/Song/Artist topics of the week.
a) News from the pit
2 Dio tracks for Rockband came out on Tuesday
“Holy Diver” and “Stand up and Shout”Ozzy and Halford Tour -
OZZY OSBOURNE will return to North America for a month-long arena tour launching November 12 in Victoria, B.C. and concluding December 12 in Minneapolis. These shows--in support of his album SCREAM and latest single “Life Won’t Wait”--are part the of the Rock Legend’s in-progress 18-month world tour on which he’s earning some of the best live reviews of his career (including raves for new guitarist, *Gus G). HALFORD, featuring legendary Judas Priest front man, Rob Halford, will perform on all dates. The first leg of arena dates will mark OZZY’s first headlining North American tour since 2007’s trek for his Black Rain album. Tickets for the Live Nation-produced tour go on sale beginning Friday, September 17.http://www.ozzy.com/us/news/ozzy-annouces-north-american-arena-tour
http://www.robhalford.com/index.php
No More PoP music at funerals
In Australia, The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne has banned the use of pop music at funerals, according to The New York Times. Archbishop Denis Hart has said the act of playing pop songs is not considered “a celebration of the life” of the deceased.
The new guidelines state: “Secular items are never to be sung or played at a Catholic funeral, such as romantic ballads, pop or rock music, political songs, football club songs.”
The Melbourne Hearld Sun reported that football songs are popular at many funerals, in addition to pop hits. Although Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” and Bette Midler’s “The Wind Beneath My Wings” are often requested, the newspaper reported that quirkier choices like AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell,” Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” and Monty Python’s “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” also had been popular before the ban.
Metallica, How many versions of a song is worth having...????
We're getting psyched up for our return to Australia and New Zealand next week (September 15, 2010 Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne, AUS) . . . it's been six long years since we've visited and we're ready to throw down! The nice people at Universal Music were so darn excited that they actually suggested that we release something special to commemorate this last run of World Magnetic tour dates, so . . . ta-da . . . we present the "Six Feet Down Under" limited edition EP! Coming to Trans-Tasman record stores and right here at the Metallica.com Store on September 20.
"This is the next logical step in a process that began back in 1991 when we first implemented the 'Taper Section' at our shows, where the fans were encouraged to bring in their own gear to record the show, and then take home their very own 'bootleg' of the concert they had just seen." said Metallica's Lars Ulrich.
b) Artist/Song of the week:
Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper (born Vincent Damon Furnier; February 4, 1948)[1] is an American rock singer, songwriter and broadcaster whose career spans more than five decades. With a stage show that features guillotines, electric chairs, fake blood, boa constrictors and baby dolls, Cooper has drawn equally from horror movies, vaudeville, and garage rock to pioneer a grandly theatrical and violent brand of heavy metal that was designed to shock.
Alice Cooper's "shock rock" reputation apparently developed almost by accident at first. An unrehearsed stage routine involving Cooper and a live chicken garnered attention from the press, and the band decided to capitalize on the tabloid sensationalism, creating in the process a new subgenre, shock rock. Cooper claims that the infamous "Chicken Incident" at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival concert in September 1969, was an accident. A chicken somehow made its way on stage during Cooper's performance; not having any experience around farm animals, Cooper presumed that, because the chicken had wings, it would be able to fly.[24] He picked it up and threw it out over the crowd, expecting it to fly away. The chicken instead plummeted into the first few rows occupied by disabled people in wheelchairs, who reportedly proceeded to tear the bird to pieces.[25]
Cooper's first album Pretties for You, released in 1969, had a slight psychedelic feel. Although it touched the US charts for one week at #193, it was ultimately a critical and commercial failure.
Despite the publicity from the Chicken Incident, the band's stronger second album, Easy Action, released in 1970, met with the same fate as its predecessor.
The album that followed, Love it to Death, released in February 1971, proved to be their breakthrough record,
Alice Cooper delivers a killer show at Riverside Theater
“His voice hasn't been affected much by age. If anything, his weathered growl accented the gritty lyrics of "Vengeance Is Mine," "Poison" and "Under My Wheels."
Milwaukee Wisconsin - Journal Sentinel
By Erik Ernst, Special to the Journal Sentinel
By Erik Ernst, Special to the Journal Sentinel
c) Singing Yin and Yang: this segment covers the “not my type” of music but will listen to the song
“Sly and the Family Stone”
Sly and the Family Stone are an American rock, funk, and soul band from San Francisco, California. Active from 1966 to 1983, the band was pivotal in the development of soul, funk, and psychedelic music. Headed by singer, songwriter, record producer, and multi-instrumentalist Sly Stone, and containing several of his family members and friends, the band was the first major American rock band to have an "integrated, multi-gender" lineup.
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