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The following information from Game Director Gaute Godager is about the plans for the near future.

Fellow Hyborians!

As you may have noticed we have had frequent patches the last two weeks. We hope this will soon start to quiet down, but as long as there are major issues – and there have been – we will dedicate the Conan team to fixing them and giving you these fixes as soon as possible! We have a plan on how to move this game forward because as you know, what you have today is but the platform – the dawn of this world. I hope you enjoy the game as is, but I can ensure you, this is but the beginning!

Our focus from now on can be summarized by these points:

1. We will add content, specifically in mid-late thirties and mid-late fifties and make the leveling speed smoother in those areas, reducing the need to grind.
2. We will have an overhaul of the PvP system – adding consequence and a host of small things.
3. We are fixing bugs you reported through all channels we can get information from.
4. We will add a new large outdoor region in the 55-60 range this summer!
5. This is only a small taster! More information about the exciting summer and fall Roadmap will come the end of the next week!
6. We are staffing up Customer Service, Quality Assurance and Community departments!

I will spend some words on a bit more details now.

1.

After months of financial statement teases and the initial reveal in an issue of Game Informer, Activision has officially released the first details of Guitar Hero 4, now known as Guitar Hero: World Tour. The game will be available this Fall on the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox 360. The same development teams that created Guitar Hero III are back on board with the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions being developed by Neversoft, while Vicarious Visions is creating the Wii version and Budcat is bringing it to the PS2.

Guitar Hero: World Tour looks to be the beginning of a completely era for the Guitar Hero series. As was revealed by Game Informer, World Tour will feature a drumkit and microphone along with the Music Studio track editor and an eight-player Battle of the Bands mode. Any song created in the Music Studio can be shared with other gamers through the game’s online database GHTunes.

Other gameplay options will include a four-player “full band” mode (that can be played both online and locally) and singleplayer Career mode that can be played with any instrument. ..

Activision is saying that World Tour will feature the largest number of tracks in a music game ever. As of now, four bands have been confirmed to have a place in World Tour: Van Halen, Linkin Park, The Eagles and Sublime. And all of the songs will be master tracks; there will be no covers on Guitar Hero: World Tour. The game will also offer “significantly more localized downloadable music than ever before on all of the next-generation consoles.” So while it’s vaguely worded, it sounds like downloadable tracks are coming to the Wii as well as the PS3 and Xbox 360.

We know that Wii Fit is due out in America on May 19th, but today, Nintendo of America announced that it will be selling Wii Fit with the balance board for $89.99.

The game features over 40 yoga, aerobics, strength training and balance activities. The hope is to “provides consumers with a fun, easy and affordable way to incorporate exercise into their daily routines.” While it won’t make you fit and lose lots of weight, it’s better to do this than sit on a couch.

I’m sure we’ll start seeing studies of people losing weight on Wii Fit, but don’t be hooked into buying any books about it.

If you are in New York, you’ll get a special treat if you buy it from the Nintendo World Store. From April 18-20, the first 1,000 customers who place a $5 deposit for Wii Fit will receive a limited edition Wii Fit t-shirt featuring the image and reproduced autograph of Mr. Miyamoto.

EDIT: Oops. Sorry everyone. Wife double-posted this story. Yup, we’re getting one of these for sure. Guess that means I have to exercise more now, eh?

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the wife has already let me know that we’re getting one.

Wii Fit has already made waves in Japan, selling more than 1.4 million copies since December, and Nintendo of America has finally announced how much it will cost us to get in shape when the game finally hits North America on May 19. The Wii Fit package, which includes both the game and the wireless balance board, will sell for $89.99.

The title features more than 40 different games and activities, in areas such as yoga, strength training, and aerobics. Nintendo also announced that the first thousand people who pre-order the game from the Nintendo World Store in New York City will receive limited-edition t-shirts featuring everyone’s favorite tea-table up-ender, Shigeru Miyamoto.

While the game will be priced slightly higher than the $75 it was originally sold for in Japan, it is probably due to the sturdier version Nintendo had to make for bigger folks on this side of the Pacific.

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After what many have seen as an eternity, Flagship Studios has finally released another patch for the single-player version of the Hellgate: London. Caution that the patch is a beta and not a final release. If you wish to install the beta patch there are a large number of fixes discovered and tested in the multiplayer version. Just be certain to back up your save games before installing beta patch.

Download Hellgate: London SP patch 1.2 beta (US)
Download Hellgate: London SP patch 1.2 beta (UE)

Also of note is that the Test Center server was updated with an early build of Hellgate: London Patch 1.3.

Hellgate: London SP patch 1.2 beta Patch Notes:

Hello Hellgaters!

We’re very pleased to bring our single-player gamers up to date with this patch. We’ve been putting a lot of focus on the online space where we get a great deal of testing done on our Test Center servers. The consistent feedback and requests to have these same improvement made available for those of you that enjoy offline, single-player gaming has not gone unheard! We’re still a small studio, so getting everything done as fast as you and we want to can be a challenge. So we greatly appreciate your patience while we got this patch into the development / test / release cycle.

You’ll find tons of bug fixes, skill changes, class balances, UI updates, graphic enhancements, and much more in this patch.

Last week, Steve Ballmer claimed that Microsoft was in talks with Sony about Blu-Ray support. But now Aaron Greenberg is stating that there are no plans for the Xbox 360 to support Blu-Ray.

Greenberg spoke with Reuters saying, “Xbox is not currently in talks with Sony or the Blu-Ray Association to integrate Blu-Ray into the Xbox experience.”

Sounds like a negative to me, but there is a lot of talk about a new Xbox 360 sku that may be coming out with a larger hard drive and integrated Blu-Ray. But that is all rumor. The only thing we know is that Microsoft will make the announcement when they are ready to. It’s hard to believe that they won’t support Blu-Ray at all, but when speaking at the Microsoft Blogger Breakfast at GDC, they made it clear that the Xbox 360 is a ‘gaming machine’.

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StarCraft II continues the epic saga of the Protoss, Terran, and Zerg. These three distinct and powerful races will clash once again in the fast-paced real-time strategy sequel to the legendary original, StarCraft. Legions of veteran, upgraded, and brand-new unit types will do battle across the galaxy, as each faction struggles for survival.

Featuring a unique single-player campaign that picks up where StarCraft: Brood War left off, StarCraft II will present a cast of new heroes and familiar faces in an edgy sci-fi story filled with adventure and intrigue. In addition, Blizzard will again offer unparalleled online play through Battle.net, the company’s world-renowned gaming service, with several enhancements and new features to make StarCraft II the ultimate competitive real-time strategy game.

Features:
* Fast-paced, hard-hitting, tightly balanced competitive real-time strategy gameplay that recaptures and improves on the magic of the original game
* Three completely distinct races: Protoss, Terran, and Zerg
* New units and gameplay mechanics further distinguish each race
* Groundbreaking single-player campaign
* Vibrant new 3D-graphics engine with support for dazzling visual effects and massive unit and army sizes
* Full multiplayer support, with new competitive features and matchmaking utilities available through Battle.net
* Full map-making and scripting tools to give players incredible freedom in customizing and personalizing their gameplay experience

The Crysis 1.2 Patch is now available for download. The patch addresses the performance of Crysis, contains many bug fixes and also some new features like auto team balance (Players will now be moved from full teams to the opposing side when dead if the numbers are unbalanced), Logitech G15 display now fully supported in MP and SP and Added mod loader to the main menu.

Patch 2 Changelog:

Optimizations and Stability
*Corrected a number of memory leaks with FSAA modes.
*Optimized Object Motion Blur for DX10 Very High Spec
*Destroying objects will now properly remove their decals from the world under DX10.
*Fixed a number of memory leaks with some procedural vegetation and destroyable objects physicalization.
*Fixed issue in windowed mode where the map or weapon attachment UI cursor can leave the game window.
*Fixed potential server exploit that could cause servers to crash
*Fixed crash with AI triangulation in the editor

General Fixes/tweaks
*Added new effects for vehicle shattering after being frozen
*Player movement will now be cancelled if the player is shooting while moving in prone mode.
*Fixed issue where player will exit VTOL from closed rear hatch irrespective of seat.
*Continuously firing the VTOL machine gun in 3rd person mode no longer causes the VTOL to descend.
*Fixed an issue where vehicle 3rd person camera could break when switching the player “ControlledTurret” flag while using the gun.
*Fixed identical swimming sounds being used on surface, underwater and swimming in different directions.
*Frogs will no longer block the player’s view after being picked up
*Fixed an issue where in unarmed mode, the character’s arms will suddenly reappear and disappear when picking up and dropping an object.
*Fixed health recharge rate when computing drowning damage.