I would totally get the Skyrim gameboy version. Gameboy might limit the size of the world.

Be interesting to see The Elder Scrolls in a mobile context.

Totally missed Buying this shirt for mothers day. Total bummer, its really cool.

http://www.teefury.com/archive/1652/Mom_/

As I type this I can't get into Diablo 3. I moved from a state where I was understanding of Blizzard to making the choice to make Diablo 3 a multiplayer game to thinking, maybe they bit off a bit more than they should have with Diablo 3. Perhaps its too much for them to handle because Ive spent more time thinking about outages than playing Diablo 3. Currently at 9.30PDT they are undergoing emergency maintenance:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5149005198#1

I hope they clean these issues up pretty soon. That said, when I was in game it was flawless and smooth. Its just the hours of downtime that is a problem. After all this clears up, expect more detailed posts about how fun the actual game is. Oh right, it is fun... When you can play it.

PS Error 37 & 3003, I hate you.

Update from blizz:

"We're continuing to work on the issues currently affecting the Americas region, which are resulting in failed login attempts and service issues. While we've identified the causes and are working to resolve them, we expect our efforts to require an approximate two hours to complete. We expect game services to fully return by approximately 11:45 p.m. PDT. We apologize for the downtime, and appreciate your continued patience."

So frustrating.

Its 12.29am Tuesday May 15th and Battle.net is down for maintenance. Error 37, servers are busy abounds and people are mad complaining right now. One of my friends said his pal connected and tried retrieving the character list and it was so slow.

Apparently the amount of traffic is DDoSing the battle.net servers. But its a good kind of DDoS because they are all paying customers. Going to stay up a little longer to see how bad this get? This feels like people won't be playing for another few hours, but I have absolutely no idea how many people are trying to play? A few million? I guess that would cause some issues but doesn't Blizzard have 10 million WoW players?

Oh a tip on the BlizzardCS Twitter:

"We are aware the Battlenet sites are in maintenance. No ETA when they will be available Updates to follow."

Not a great time, but if its a planned outage I guess....

Anyways, my client installed without a hitch. I have some options available that others don't seem to. I can watch all of the cinematics for each class right now. In fact I can watch all the cinematics for the first act. I imagine this is a bug but even if it wasn't I don't want to ruin any of the game so ill watch them in the game.

If you are running into connection issues check this handy dandy Blizz created guide:

http://us.battle.net/support/en/article/diablo-iii-connection-troubleshooting

Anyways, hopefully the issues clear up and people can start playing post-haste as there are minions to slay in Sanctuary!

**EDIT** I just tried and it looks like Starcraft 2 works fine but I can't login to WoW.

**EDIT 2** Update from Blizzard: "Please note that due to a high volume of traffic, login and character creation may be slower than normal. If you're unable to login to the game or create characters, please wait and try again. We've temporarily taken our Battle.net websites offline and launched more servers to accomodate for the traffic. We hope to resolve these issues as soon as possible and appreciate your patience."

Here we are on the eve of the Diablo 3 launch. I am not sure I have anticipated a launch quite as eagerly as this one. I kept hitting the refresh on my Amazon package track and was really excited it moved 30 miles. Yeah, its like that for me.

If all goes well I may head to 12p line at a Best Buy with a friend that wants to pick it up tonight. Ill take pictures and all that, hopefully there is a nerd rush and someone mistakes the event for a Pretty Petz 2 launch. "Wait, you mean this isn't Catz 4 Back in Mittens launch line? OH MAN!" Or maybe thats what I will say.... Hmmmm.

Anyways, as always here is a few Diablo 3 news bits for your consumption. Don't joy puke early, you need to save your strength for the midnight drop.

According to Amazon Diablo 3 is the most pre-ordered game ever. Makes sense to me.

"A representative for Amazon told Joystiq that Diablo 3 is Amazon's most pre-ordered PC title ever. "Today, it became the most pre-ordered PC game of all-time on Amazon.com – even exceeding pre-orders for Blizzard's own StarCraft II and World of Warcraft: Cataclysm," the rep said."

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/05/11/diablo-3-is-amazons-most-pre-ordered-pc-title-ever/

And like the aforementioned article says, with gamer desktops like this it makes sense:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=472706

Looks like Oskar Pannier, the guy that did a few Diablo 3 comics he posted to Facebook got a new website located at http://hellyeahcomics.com. One such comic is shown above. Cool to see he will start doing it regularly and he has a proper website for it now.

Blizzard keeps talking about the console port of Diablo 3. Its so complicated and what they say makes so little sense to me I won't bother summing it up. You can decode it yourself here:

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/05/14/blizzard-explains-why-its-hiring-for-console-diablo-but-not-ma/

What are you doing for the D3 launch?

**EDIT**

Exchange between some married people about D3 launch: http://i.imgur.com/EX00x.jpg

I created another Portal 2 map: "Levels be Three Let them Be."

Not entirely sure what the name means, but it sounded good to me.

Its a bit more puzzley than my first map and it requires you to use one cube the entire map, which is kind of neat. Been spending quite a bit of time playing other peoples Portal 2 maps and building my own. This is my second map and as such spent more time decorating it than the first map. Trying to place the observation rooms and lights such that the test chamber doesn't look bare. Also pushing up single blocks and putting a light on top to make things look a bit more natural. I like the way it all turned out.

The map description:

"Run, jump and catapult yourself to the top tier. You only have one cube and you will need it for the entire course, so don't lose it!"

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=71898109

**EDIT** Fixed a bug with this map that allowed you to enter a place out of order. Should be all good now.

I just made and published my first Portal 2 map called "The Joys of the Underground." The new Portal 2 map editor is pure awesome. I haven't had this much fun making maps since Wolf 3D. For the first 45 minutes I was just building things, then I started pushing out walls and built a huge chamber. 3 hours later "The Joys of the Underground" was complete.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=71669237

Let me know what you think. The map isn't hard but it is pretty fun and I LOVED creating it. I will be making more maps for certain. Making a map creator tool that doesn't take a PHD to use is nice.

2K just dropped two gameplay videos for Borderlands 2. They handed out the same gameplay footage to all the big game news sites and then the news sites commented over the footage. The above video is IGN's take on the siren video drop. Some interesting footage of the class.

2K also release some footage of the gunzerker:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46GOWOkHySM

The game looks mad epic. Can't wait for Clap-Trap to bring the wub wub. This is a game I will pre-order and nab on the PS3. What will you play it on? Are you going to pick it up?

One minor gripe from the IGN video commentary: "How many times do you need to mention Borderlands is like Diablo?" Yeah, we got it when the game dropped, thanks.

Gather round children, for I will tell thee a story of Angels and Demons of old. Past battles fought between good and ill that shaped the very fabric of our universe! Well, that or you could hit play on the video above this post.

"Long before the creation of Sanctuary, the Eternal Conflict between angels and demons raged on for untold millennia. Blizzard Entertainment teamed up with renowned director Peter Chung and acclaimed animation studio Titmouse to create this unique vision of a fundamental moment in the battle between the High Heavens and the Burning Hells."

A bit of other interesting Diablo 3 tid-bitery comes from a recent Joystiq article about just how many people joined the Diablo 3 open beta weekend from a recent Activision/Blizzard investor earnings call where Michael Morhaime revealed:

"We recently conducted an open beta stress test for Diablo 3, where anyone could download and try out the game. The response we got was huge, with more than two million people worldwide participating in the open beta." A lot of the testing, Morhaime said on the call, was beneficial to Diablo 3's development – particularly to the Auction House feature."

Awesome. Hopefully that means launch will be flawless.

In other news that makes me squee with delight like a 8 year old... Seems retailers around the United States are unboxing Diablo 3 for launch next Tuesday. A few rouge employees are even snapping a few pics of the un-crated boxes.

http://i.imgur.com/JEt5n.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/oSkS9.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/bhJGO.jpg

I want one of the autographed collectors editions so bad!
-
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/05/09/diablo-3-open-beta-nets-2-million-participants/

Seems like a few companies are celebrating 20th anniversaries lately. Epic is celebrating its 20th anniversary and to commemorate the event they are releasing the "Epic 20th Anniversary Original Soundtrack."

Download it here:
http://epicgames.com/community/epic-20th-anniversary-commemorative-soundtrack/

Its a good sampling of all their games over the 20 years they have been pumping out the hits. To bad they didn't include ZZT.

iD Software is celebrating Wolfenstein 3D's 20th birthday today. As such they are releasing it for free on a few platforms as well as dropping the prices for a few other game packs on Steam:

How to Play:

Play the game in your browser now for free:
http://wolfenstein.bethsoft.com/

Download the game now for free on iOS:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wolfenstein-3d-classic-platinum/id309470478?mt=8

Wolf Pack for $3.75 (75% off of Steam) — includes Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Spear of Destiny, and Wolfenstein 3D:
http://store.steampowered.com/sub/418/

id Software Super Pack for $49.99 (50% off) — includes so many games, you should just visit Steam to get the lowdown:
http://store.steampowered.com/sub/14587/

I remember packing this game around on my floppies and playing it anywhere I could. This game blew my mind in terms of what games could be when it was new. I loved using the level editor to make my own levels. I made my High School, house and many other awesome levels with the Wolf Editor. I never beat all the Episodes save Episode 1. Had the shareware version for quite some time before I copied the original full game. Always felt bad about that, but I have purchased it MANY times over since as an adult. One memory I have of Wolf 3D is building up a boot disc so I could get the sound blaster to work in game. Cool to see things evolve such that I don't have to do that any more.

What are your favourite memories of this game?

PS the above commentary with John Carmack is amazing, check it out.

http://www.bethblog.com/2012/05/09/happy-20th-wolfenstein-3d/

Wondering if one should buy this. You know, I don't entirely mean me, you know its for someone I know. He is a big dork and loves this stuff.

Thoughts?

My friend likes Ninja Turtles AND Mario. Too much awesome in one shirt? Possibly.

http://www.splitreason.com/product/ign/1234?utm_source=gplus&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=ninjatroopasGP

I have so much Diablo news I am going to break it out into a few posts over a day or so. The above linked video is a 5 minute recap of the Diablo story till now. If you are interested in a 50 foot view of Sanctuary and the sordid history of Tristram and why you shouldn't build your city right next to the place you imprison one of the main prime evils, check it out!

Blizzard recently blogged a Diablo 3 launch day preparation guide:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/5338015

They are missing some off my Diablo 3 prep list:

1. Come up with a good fake illness to call in to work with.
2. Stock up on dollar store 5 hour energy(the real ones are expensive yo!) for the 16 hour blitz you will give the game after it boots up.
3. Stock easy foam bats and nearby pillows for when Battle.net goes down and you CANT PLAY
4. Make no weekend plans as you need to power level all 5 classes to 60. GET ALL THE LEVELS!

In the totally awesome news camp, looks like PixelJunk is having a 5th anniversary sale. Today until May 15 they are selling Racers, Monsters, Eden and Shooter for $1 each! PixelJunk Shooter 2 and SideScroller are both half-off for $5.

Looks like a good excuse to pickup PixelJunk Monsters as I loved the demo and never pulled the trigger on the full game.

You going to pick any of these up?

I picked up Uplink as part of a Humble Bundle. It reminded me of the "Hacker War" type games I played on the BBS'es of yore back in High School. The premise is that you are a hacker and start with a few bucks and take on assignments to hack systems and get money to upgrade your computer to hack into more difficult systems. I guess all that to say is that its a text based computer hacking RPG. And... its fun.

I created an account and the tutorial allowed me to make a few hacks easily enough. I found the UI of the game to be a bit confuzzling a few times. Its not hard to navigate after you figure it out. The game UI is essentially a re-visioned Operating System UI similar in nature to Fluxbox or IceWM Unix window managers.

http://fluxbox.org/screenshots/

I found the ambiance of the game to be on par with running a stripped down Unix system which is pretty cool. I mean the whole game is about computer hacking, so yeah, it fits the motif well.

I played a few games and lost at one point and had to make a new account. I am not sure what I did to get booted out of the hacking club, I think I got caught and didn't bribe an official or something. In the end if you are looking for a fun return to games like Hacker Wars or Drug Wars, Uplink is it. Plus its on steam and not too expensive.