Sideshow: Director to work his WOW

Sam Raimi, director of the Spider-Man movies, has signed with Warner Bros. to make a movie version of the crazy-popular video game World of Warcraft, reports Variety mag. This is huge news in the colossal video-game universe. WOW is what's known as - all together now - a "massively multi-player online role-playing game," or MMORPG. At its center is a struggle for world dominance between the Horde and the Alliance. Blizzard Entertainment first brought WOW out in 1994, and with 11.5 million monthly subscribers, making 16 million-plus quests each day, it holds more than 60 percent of the entire MMORPG market. Wowee. Raimi's three Spidey flicks are all in the top 20 U.S. grossers of all time, with the original at number 8, having led more than $403 mils into its jaws. Before he can get to WOW, Raimi must spin out Spider-Man 4, scheduled to begin shooting early next year and star Spidey lovey-poohs Kirsten Dunst and Tobey Maguire.

Springsteen to play Spectrum for year
Not really, but it's getting to seem that way. In what is becoming the longest goodbye since the last 15 minutes of Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will play two more shows to help close the Spectrum. Bruce and band already are playing Oct. 13 and Oct. 14. Tickets went on sale yesterday. Now they'll also play Oct. 19 and Oct. 20. Tix to the added shows go on sale Thursday at 10 a.m. through ComcastTIX.com. Call 1-800-298-4200, show up at the Wachovia box office or selected Acme Markets, or go to LiveNation.com.

Is that it? Is that the last last last? Nope. Comcast-Spectacor and Live Nation are adding shows until Pearl Jam performs the very last, final ones at the end of October.

Travolta to leave Scientology?
According to Gatecrasher, gossip blog for the Daily News, rumor is John Travolta may be leaving Scientology, shaken by the January death of son Jett. Rick Ross, a lecturer on Scientology, thinks that if so, Scientology's failure to help Jett may have led Travolta "to question his faith." Travolta has been a member of the church for 34 years.

Kate 2.0 and Jon zero point zero
The ever-poetic Hollywood news corps has coined a delicious nickname for former Star reporter Kate Major, chosen squeeze of Jon Gosselin. (Or is she? Jon told reporters Saturday he still loved Hailey Glassman.) They're calling her Kate 2.0, in reference to Kate Gosselin, Jon's why (because she's not yet his ex). Jon, costar of Jon & Kate Plus 8, says, "I care about Kate Major. (He cares about something! There's your headline.) Kate 2.0, for her part, revealed to TMZ that "I just want everyone to know that I am a nice and genuine person." Ex-cept that the Daily News reports she's nicely and genuinely shopping her Gosselin story to tabloids, looking to get paid.

'Bachelorette' finale
Center City's Reid Rosenthal, who was sent packing two weeks ago on ABC's The Bachelorette, showed up in Hawaii on last night's season finale to propose to Jillian Harris, a designer from Vancouver. But alas, Rosenthal, a Rittenhouse Square Realtor, was rebuffed as Harris selected Ed Swiderski, a technology consultant from Chicago.

Woman with one name skeds album
Madonna has announced she's releasing a greatest-hits collection Sept. 29 titled Celebration. Track list? . . . Naah, ya gotta wait. But you will dance: Tracks such as "Everybody," "Express Yourself," and "Vogue" (frame your face!) are all but certain, as are some guests. Among rumored guests: Lil Wayne.

Hewitt writes; post-literate era begins
The history of literature is in for a shake-up - at least, if Jennifer Love Hewitt has anything to say about it. ET Online reports that JLH has penned a comics series. Jennifer Love Hewitt's The Music Box will hit stores in November. Topic? Possessed music box. What happens when you get near it. Same old, same old. Hewitt calls the 10-part series a "horror/thriller" and says, a trifle confusingly, that the experience of literary creation has been "like a very fun nightmare come true."

Able to leap McCain in a single bound
This is the summer of Barack Obama in comics, BTW. Devils Due Publishing has come out with Drafted, in which Obama leads a postapocalyptic Chicago, and DDP has begun a series titled Barack the Barbarian, in which the loinclothed prez battles Hilaria (wonder who that is) and Red Sarah (whoever could that be?). And in President Evil (hilarious title) by Antarctic Press, the presidential plane crashes into - it had to happen - zombie-infested Washington! Our question: How will Obama know the difference?

Squeezies past, present and future
American sweetie-pie Dakota Fanning, 15, and English teenthrob Freddie Highmore, 17, were seen having a date (the outing, not the fruit) in Beverly Hills Saturday night. Both have nice resumes, Dakota in films such as Man on Fire (she's also in New Moon, the sequel to Twilight), and Highmore in Finding Neverland and Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. So cute - and so young they get carded for milkshakes. Add them up and they'd still be younger than Stone Age types such as Anna Friel (Pushing Daisies), 33, or Leo DiCaprio (DOA at 34), or just-about-corpses like Hugh Jackman (40). . . .

Speaking of squeezie-pies, there's always Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, whose lip-lock in Twilight turned millions on, and may well be repeated in New Moon. The two arrived at Comic Con San Diego over the weekend in separate cars, but limo'd back to LaLa afterward. That's a solid three-hour snuggle, if you're counting. . . . So distraught is Nick Lachey at not being with Vanessa Minnillo or Jessica Simpson anymore that in Atlantic City he was with Kristin Cavallari of The Hills, and in LaLaLand with an un-I.D.'d blonde . . . Meantime, Joe Jonas, middlebro of the Jonas Brothers, has ceased to be a thang with Camilla Belle (10,000 BC - the movie, not her birth year - that would be 1986, making her almost three years older than Joe).

Source: http://www.philly.com/

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EA preps Warhammer MMORPG for the Mac

Electronic Arts has introduced a beta version of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning for the Mac. The final (Mac) cut of the popular MMORPG is scheduled to be released in Fall 2009.

"The MMORPG audience continues to expand, and that means gamers eager to experience War aren't all playing on a PC," explained Jeff Hickman, executive producer of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. "We want as many players as possible to experience the glory of Realm vs. Realm combat, and bringing War to the Mac makes this an exciting reality."

According to Hickman, War for the Mac was designed using the Cider Portability Engine developed by TransGaming. The engine reportedly acts as "wrapper" around the software, which allows the title to run "seamlessly" on Intel-based Macs. However, Warhammer will not run on PowerPC (G3/G4/G5) based Mac systems (PowerMac) and is not compatible with GMA 950 integrated video cards.

In addition, the game requires Mac OS X 10.5.7 Leopard or higher, 2 gigabytes of RAM and an ATI X1600 or NVidia 7300 GT with 128 MB of Video RAM.

The beta version of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning can be downloaded from Mythic Entertainment here.

Source: http://www.tgdaily.com/

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Star Trek Online

Become part of Star Trek®: The Star Trek universe will appear for the first time in a massively multiplayer online game. Everything from the elegant domes of Starfleet Academy to the ancient temples of Vulcan, from the towers of Qo’noS to the Fire Caves of Bajor, from the mysterious Mutara Nebula to the unexplored voids of deep space, all will be represented in stunning 3-D graphics. Immerse yourself in the future of the Trek universe as it moves into the 25th century: a time of shifting alliances and new discoveries.

Adventure in the Final Frontier: Explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations in an expanding vast universe. Make contact with alien races, discover resources and uncover mysteries that will change the future of the Star Trek universe.

You Are the Captain: Command your own starship as a Federation Captain or a Klingon Warrior. Outfit it with the systems that you need to make your mark in the galaxy. Customize your ship as you see fit. Recruit, train and mold your crew into an elite force for exploration and combat.

Surface, Shipboard and Deep Space Adventures: Command your vessel in thrilling space battles, or beam down to planets with your away team for face-to-face confrontations. Missions will take you and your friends into space, planetside and even inside starships!

Powered by the Cryptic Engine, Star Trek® Online will be developed for both console and PC formats. With customizable ships and characters from the Klingon Empire and United Federation of Planets, ground, space and shipboard gameplay and unique options for player-generated content set in the Star Trek universe, Star Trek Online is the MMOG that allows you to boldly go where no one has gone before!

Play Star Trek Online Now

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Free Realms Approaches the Five-Million-Player Mark

Sony Online Entertainment's free-to-play MMO Free Realms is 'close to' 5 million registered users, revealed Sony Online president John Smedley, speaking in a Gamasutra-attended panel at Comic-Con International San Diego 2009,

And DFC analyst George Chronis estimated that right now, 33 percent of United States game revenue comes from MMOs.

Launched this past April, Free Realms reached a player base of 1 million in only ten days, and has seen a series of statements from SOE as that figure has ticked up by the million every several weeks.

Smedley credited the success to the free-to-play business model, which relies on microtransactions for revenue.

The company has also implemented officially-sanctioned microtransactions into its existing subscription-based games EverQuest and EverQuest II, and the exec said user adoption has been strong. “We now have 34 percent of our EverQuest II users using microtransactions,” he said, with the original EverQuest at a slightly lower percentage.

The figures came after several statements by fellow panelist Min Kim, of South Korea-based MMO developer Nexon, which relies heavily on the free-to-play model with its games like Maple Story.

Kim described the company's Asian games as “truly massive,” based on the incredible percentage of South Korean citizens who play their games – as verified by social security numbers. “I think it's because we changed our business model and made all the game free,” he said. “Once they get into the game, we have to earn our paycheck.”

“When people started talking about it back in 2003 or 2004, people said Western games would never want to do this, to play a game for free and then buy and items. And now everybody is saying, 'We're going to have microtransactions as part of our business model.”

He credited his company's successful introduction of the MMO Maple Story to the West. With Maple Story's revenue accrued in 2007, microtransaction revenue provides the equivalent of about 120,000 monthly paying users in more traditional subscription-based games. The game reaches over 6 million free and paying registered users in the United States with little marketing effort so far.

Smedley agreed with Kim about the effectiveness of free games and microtransactions: “They have an item that allows you to become a moderator in a chat room and kick people out. It's awesome.”

DFC analyst George Chronis, serving as panel moderator, shared some of his firm's outlooks and statistics on the market. “When something gets popular, like Ultima Online did and EverQuest did, everybody rushes in,” said Chronis. “And World of Warcraft added a lot of interest, but MMOs are changing,” he said, referring to other MMO models like the free-to-play approach taken by many Asian publishers.

DFC expects that in 2013, 72 percent of MMO revenues will be coming from PC games, and 28 percent from console games – and, “right now, 33 percent of revenue generated by games in the United States is generated by people playing MMOs.”

Source: http://www.gamasutra.com

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Discover The World Of Strategic Gaming

With the increase in the use of Internet online games, one can easily come across with such portals. Try to imagine how much progress you can attain if you could play some computer strategic game online. Once upon a time computer strategic game designed to play offline, over the years the fan base increased for Online games, World of Warcraft Series of games are also designed to play online with an entirely new concept of WOW accounts.




In the current context, like any other yahoo or google account unlike where one can use it to check mails WOW account take benefit where one use WOW accounts to play same. How else one can explain this strategic World of Warcraft games are used to play with any of the real time players, just like you on the internet all over the world. It is impossible to overstate how the applications, have wasted your life already. Imagine actually being available in various types, to suit the need of each and every one kind of player on the net preface from a simple WOW accounts to a full-featured WOW account with different power leveling features and escort services.

How you really trust purchase WOW accounts from someone? In fact most of these WOW accounts are available with the people on the Internet known as Internet Resellers.
WOW accounts offer a 100% guarantee on all the accounts they trade. They are bug free and come with the conventional license, terms and conditions. Even if there is any mistake or mishap for the new account there resellers will do it up for you and return it back. Studies have shown that it massively multiplayer games don’t just exist as gigantic entities-they progress from day to day and the experience of playing one will be influenced as much by the people you play with as by the game itself.

So when you play online almost nearly around 3000 Internet users are online to it, there are lots of levels too. The game has the variety of comfortable, beautifully crafted and varied world that you’d expect form a World of Warcraft game, with a captivating back-story which is still unfolding through the different expansion packs and content keep posted. There are various World of Warcraft character are available such as Warriors, Monks, priests, Thieves shaman druids, Black Mage offensive casters, death knights, White Mage healers and so on. Your character can change jobs to level up is more than one and select more specialized secondary job. The familiarity of playing the game is still too personal, and it’s fully worthless to put a score for an MMORPG onto the same axis as scores for normal offline or multiplayer games. But the World of Warcraft XI exceeds our expectations in almost every way.

Even though nowadays we have a wide range of games available every corner of us, World of Warcraft has managed to remain one of the most popular online games all over the world. Buy accounts is a profitable business, if you want to buy the account, you desire to name your character, to decide its skills and so on, you can buy a customized account that suits your specifications. Visit www.gametag.com.

Source: http://www.bignews.biz/

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