Goodbye 2008, Hello 2009.

In what could arguably be called the worst year in the last 40 years on record. I would like to say, fuck off 2008, and welcome 2009.

Happy New Year.... Bitches!

The Next big game in 2009?

With 2008 bringing a major disapoint in video games, most of us are wondering what 2009 will be in store for many of us.  Well folks, it appears there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

50 cent, a modern day poet once said,

"You can call this my new shit
But it aint new tho
I got rid of my old bitch
Now i got new hoes"

His new game, Blood on the Sand, which is a sequel to his first game called Bullet proof, should come out in 2009.  I did not read much into this, I would hate to spoil it for myself, however the story goes something like this;  Someone steals 50 cents diamond skull and him and the gunit boys go to iraq and have to get it back.

From what I understand the whole G-unit crew will be in the game, this includes Tony Yayo and Lloyd Banks.  Young Buck will be absent since he done got his bitch ass kicked out by 50 cent. 

Anyways, enough spoilers check this trailer out! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Msx6wtfCPUA

G G G G GUNIT!

Worlds.com Files Suit Against NCsoft for Patent Infringement

Specifically, the suit claims that NCsoft has infringed on patent 7,181,690, "System and Method for Enabling Users to Interact in a Virtual Space" through its games, including City of Heroes, City of Villains, Dungeon Runners, Exteel, Guild Wars, Lineage, Lineage II, and Tablula Rasa.

The complaint seeks to recover damages for the infringement and asks that NCsoft be prevented from infringing on patent 690, which covers scaling.   Based on NCsoft's headquarters in Austin as a source of the infringement, the complaint was filed in the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division.

Worlds.com Inc. v. NCsoft Corp is Civil Action No. 6:08-cv-508. You can download the PDF of the complaint here.

http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2008/12/worldscom-files-suit-against-ncsoft.html

2008 was the year man-made global warming was disproved

The first, on May 21, headed "Climate change threat to Alpine ski resorts" , reported that the entire Alpine "winter sports industry" could soon "grind to a halt for lack of snow". The second, on December 19, headed "The Alps have best snow conditions in a generation" , reported that this winter's Alpine snowfalls "look set to beat all records by New Year's Day".

Easily one of the most important stories of 2008 has been all the evidence suggesting that this may be looked back on as the year when there was a turning point in the great worldwide panic over man-made global warming. Just when politicians in Europe and America have been adopting the most costly and damaging measures politicians have ever proposed, to combat this supposed menace, the tide has turned in three significant respects.

First, all over the world, temperatures have been dropping in a way wholly unpredicted by all those computer models which have been used as the main drivers of the scare. Last winter, as temperatures plummeted, many parts of the world had snowfalls on a scale not seen for decades. This winter, with the whole of Canada and half the US under snow, looks likely to be even worse. After several years flatlining, global temperatures have dropped sharply enough to cancel out much of their net rise in the 20th century.

Ever shriller and more frantic has become the insistence of the warmists, cheered on by their army of media groupies such as the BBC, that the last 10 years have been the "hottest in history" and that the North Pole would soon be ice-free – as the poles remain defiantly icebound and those polar bears fail to drown. All those hysterical predictions that we are seeing more droughts and hurricanes than ever before have infuriatingly failed to materialise.

Even the more cautious scientific acolytes of the official orthodoxy now admit that, thanks to "natural factors" such as ocean currents, temperatures have failed to rise as predicted (although they plaintively assure us that this cooling effect is merely "masking the underlying warming trend", and that the temperature rise will resume worse than ever by the middle of the next decade).

Secondly, 2008 was the year when any pretence that there was a "scientific consensus" in favour of man-made global warming collapsed. At long last, as in the Manhattan Declaration last March, hundreds of proper scientists, including many of the world's most eminent climate experts, have been rallying to pour scorn on that "consensus" which was only a politically engineered artefact, based on ever more blatantly manipulated data and computer models programmed to produce no more than convenient fictions.

Thirdly, as banks collapsed and the global economy plunged into its worst recession for decades, harsh reality at last began to break in on those self-deluding dreams which have for so long possessed almost every politician in the western world. As we saw in this month's Poznan conference, when 10,000 politicians, officials and "environmentalists" gathered to plan next year's "son of Kyoto" treaty in Copenhagen, panicking politicians are waking up to the fact that the world can no longer afford all those quixotic schemes for "combating climate change" with which they were so happy to indulge themselves in more comfortable times.

Suddenly it has become rather less appealing that we should divert trillions of dollars, pounds and euros into the fantasy that we could reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 80 per cent. All those grandiose projects for "emissions trading", "carbon capture", building tens of thousands more useless wind turbines, switching vast areas of farmland from producing food to "biofuels", are being exposed as no more than enormously damaging and futile gestures, costing astronomic sums we no longer possess.

As 2009 dawns, it is time we in Britain faced up to the genuine crisis now fast approaching from the fact that – unless we get on very soon with building enough proper power stations to fill our looming "energy gap" - within a few years our lights will go out and what remains of our economy will judder to a halt. After years of infantile displacement activity, it is high time our politicians – along with those of the EU and President Obama's US – were brought back with a mighty jolt into contact with the real world.

Original Story: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/3982101/2008-was-the-year-man-made-global-warming-was-disproved.html

Warhammer = Houston we have a problem!

Warhammer Online (Mythic/EA's disaster MMO) is headed for troubled waters.

As if the layoffs and appologies from the Development staff were not bad enough, it seems that the Warhammer marketing kiddies cant sell enough box copies so they have started an "Invite a friend" campaign. This is coming from the same game that has been out less than 6 months. The retention rate for WH has fallen off since day one and the bleeding does not seem to ending anytime soon. 

What's even more amazing is the complete lack of anything new or even good about the systems they produce, lets take a look at what the key features of this failurific MMO tout.

 Key Features

• Based on Games Workshop’s popular Warhammer fantasy world. Dominated by force of arms and magic, this world provides a rich setting for hundreds of thousands of players to experience the epic nature of war and the glory of battle. (Maybe that was cool in 1978, but you guys are a little behind the times)
  
• Join one of six Armies and fight for the Armies of Order (Dwarf, High Elf and Empire) or the Armies of Destruction (Greenskin, Dark Elf, or Chaos). Wage war across three unique battlefronts.  (Armies? Really? Nice use of words that mean nothing in game. Crap is "Nice" too, if you call it nice. But it is still crap)
• The next generation Realm vs. Realm game system integrates both PvP combat and PvE quests on the same map in support of the greater war. (Next generation? What the hell does that mean? Just because you add quests doesnt mean its "the next generation", if anything thats a more crap.)
• Engage in four levels of RvR combat (Lol,You mean stay at level 10? 20 and 30? before doing the same thing at 40? Who writes this shit?)
• Skirmishes: Incidental PvP combat (Ok, whatever that means)
• Battlefields: Objective-based battles in the game world (Because the world needs another rendition of Capture the "insert trinket here", very ground breaking indeed)
  
• Scenarios: Instanced, point-based battles balanced with NPC Dogs of War (What?)
• Campaigns: The invasion of enemy lands culminating in the ultimate battle - the Capital City Siege
• Undertake a wide variety of PvE quest types related to an army’s ongoing war efforts, including the new Public Quest: a multi-staged, story-driven quest that benefits from the participation of all army members within a specific location.
• Embark on an epic quest to complete the Tome of Knowledge and unlock Warhammer lore, detailed monster information, and major story plotlines.
• A robust combat system introduces Player Tactics (earned powers you equip prior to battle) and Morale Skills (combat options that increase in power when the momentum of battle is in your favor).
• Customizable armor and a visual guild system allow a player to make their character truly unique.

With compettion like WOW and the horrible PVP implementation in Warhammer, it seems just a matter of time before this project has gone the way of Tabula Rasa.  It's not like we did not see this coming. And if this is any indication of what MMO's have in store for the "community" then we are all doomed to horribad games that none of us care to play.

It would do the industry well to get over its own arrogance and take the hint: YOU ARE MAKING TERRIBLE GAMES WITH RULESETS THAT PLEASE FEW.

Hawthorne