Author - Jerry Paxton

World of Warcraft Goes Partially Free to Play

Blizzard Entertainment has announced that its highly-popular MMORPG, World of Warcraft, has gone somewhat free-to-play. As it stands now, any person with a Battle.net account can download the “Starter Edition” of WoW and play any character up to level 20.

The following restrictions are placed on all Starter Edition Accounts:

– A level cap of 20.
– A maximum of 10 gold.
– Trade skills are capped at 100 ranks.
– Unable to trade via the Auction House, mailbox, or player-to-player.
– In-game access to public chat channels unavailable. Players are limited to communicating using only say, party, or whisper.
– Characters will be unable to create or join guilds.
– Characters are not able to send whispers to other characters unless they have been added to the characters’ friends lists or have received a whisper from a character first.
– Characters will not be able to invite other players into a party.
– Characters will not be able to join parties with other characters above level 20.
– Voice chat disabled on Starter Edition accounts.
– Realms experiencing login queues will prioritize players who have full, paid accounts.
– Starter Edition accounts are not eligible for character transfers
RealID features are disabled on all Starter Edition Accounts.

Bastion Gets Release Date

It looks as though Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment’s upcoming action-RPG, Bastion, will be kicking off Microsoft’s Summer of Arcade program for XBLA titles on July 20, 2011. Bastion puts players in the boots of “The Kid” who must fight off all sorts of creatures and badness in order to save his civilization. Bastion will retail for 1200 Microsoft Points.

Tribes: Ascend Gameplay Trailer and Screenshots

Hi-Rez Studios has released the first gameplay trailer for their upcoming rebirth of the Tribes video game series, Tribes: Ascend, as well as some new screenshots. The game is planned to be a free-to-play online shooter and is scheduled for released this fall.

Trailer

Screenshots

OnLive Announces Homefront Multiplayer Event for Friday

OnLive has announced that they are hosting a huge multiplayer event on Friday, July 1, between 3pm and 5pm PDT. The event will take place in the realm of THQ’s shooter, Homefront, and will be available to subscribers of the service’s Homefront Large-Scale Warfare Multiplayer PlayPack or PlayPass services. The event will see the rewarding of a multitude of prizes to  participants. You can find out more about OnLive including how to join over at the service’s official website.

Instructions on Joining Event

1. Whether you have Homefront Large-Scale Warfare Multiplayer through the OnLive PlayPack Bundle or a PlayPass, just sign in and launch the game this Friday, July 1, between 3:00pm and 5:00 pm PDT (6:00pm and 8:00 pm EDT).

2. Make sure you set your permissions to allow spectators to chat with you. For instructions on how to set these permissions, read the”How do I control whether spectators can chat with me while I’m playing” section at http://bit.ly/kfxpDh . The THQ scouts will be contacting players by voice chat, so if you can’t hear, you can’t win.

3. Play either Battle Commander TDM or Ground Control multiplayer modes and bring on your best shots. Scouts going by the player Tags THQCraig and THQJeremy will be spectating and awarding prizes as outlined below, as well as randomly doling out Homefront swag to those bold enough to join the fight.

· Resistance Fighter of the Day – Astro A40 Headset & MIXAMP 5.8
· Best Killstreak – AR. Drone Parrot
· Best Vehicular Kill – OnLive Game Controller
· Best Sniper Kill – Free Full PlayPass
· Best Run-and-Gun Player – Free Full PlayPass
· Most Embarrassing Death – Free Full PlayPass
· Best Grenade Kill – Free Full PlayPass

Calibur11 and EPIC Team Up for Massive GOW Giveaway

Calibur11 and EPIC Games have teamed up to create a pretty awesome giveaway. Customers who purchase Calibur11’s Gears of War 3 Vault (a case which encompasses your Xbox 360 console as well as provides increased airflow – all with a special Gears of War theme) will be entered into a drawing to win a life-sized suit of COG armor.

“We are huge fans of the ‘Gears of War’ franchise and really wanted to raise the bar with our exclusive Gears of War 3 Vault,” said Coy Christmas, CEO of Calibur11. “We believe we have succeeded in doing so with the addition of the different color modes and the Infected Omen which reacts every time you get downed or are revived in the game.”

Gears of War 3 is due out on September 20, 2011 for the Xbox 360 home entertainment system from Microsoft.

Warlords Characters Trailer

Atari has released a new trailer for its re-imagining of the classic arcade title, Warlords. This new trailer shows off the game’s various warlords and their abilities, bonuses, etc. The game is due out this Summer on the XBLA and PSN services.