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HL2's Alyx as Playable Character, MMOG Updates, Women in Games Survey
A good week for MMOG gamers, as Star Wars Galaxies Patch 13.0 goes into effect, revamping the Galactic Civil War and making way for the Combat Upgrade. World of Warcraft players, likewise, should be happy to learn about future game developments in upcoming patches. There are a lot of folks in that last category, as Blizzard stated this week that they've sold more than 800,000 copies of WoW, making Warcraft the largest U.S. based MMOG. If you're interested in learning more about MMOG stats, SirBruce's mmogchart.com has recently been updated with new information. Speaking of learning, registration will begin soon for the academically inclined Games+Learning+Society conference to be held in Madison, Wisconsin. If the concept intrigues you there are only 200 passes to go around, so you'd best sign up early. Gamespot's weekly Rumor Control article certainly intrigues, and this week states that Half-Life 2's Alyx is likely to be a playable character in an upcoming expansion to the hit game. A female protagonist would be a nice change of pace. Women in games in general are a good thing, and GameGirlAdvance has a lengthy survey for women gamers and women in the games industry to fill out.
Alyx being the protagonist wouldn't be the first time Valve has put a female into a protagonist role. In the PS2 version of Half-Life, the Co-op mission had both players as females.
Frink: Nice try floyd, but you were designed for scrubbing, and scrubbing is what you shall do.
a la City of heroes. Side kicking (aka the ability to change one's level to play with friends that are at a lower or higher level) is one of the better invasions in City of heroes and I'm glad to see it is working it's way into other games (plus it will give eq2 players who power leveled to 50 the chance to go back and see what all they missed)
s sa ge?board.id=pround&message.id=1506
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/me
I think WoW needs to get their priorities straight. I am browsing Slashdot because I am looking at a 30 minute line to get into my server. Just let people transfer servers, increase their capacity, just do SOMETHING. All of that great content and what not doesn't do me any good if I can't even log in.
The NPCs at faction bases have been given a major difficulty bump. I took my TKM/Master Riflesman out to a Rebel base to farm, like I did a lot before the patch, and instead of mowing them down, I nearly got killed. The tough NPCs are about on a par with the NPCs on the Corellian Corvette.
It is an interesting change, I'll give it that. If you're Imperial, you want to avoid Rebel-controlled cities, and vice-versa. Opposite-faction NPCs will shoot you on sight, whether you're PvP-enabled (overt) or not (covert). (You can go to "on-leave" status, but a scan by opposing faction NPCs can out you and leave you open to attack.)
The episode of G4TV.com (dumb show name) airing right now has Hal Robins the voice of Dr. Kliener as a guest (and the lady who did Alyx's voice on the phone.) One of the hosts asked about the exspansion pack and while Alyx hadn't heard anything, Hal (who is super weird) says that he has been asked to do more voicework for Valve.
Sounds confirmed to me.
when Push Comes to Shove