Team Fortress 2 designer Jakob Jungels recently updated the official TF2 blog with exciting information: beginning with the next game update, the team will unveil new environments created using a new toolset.The decision to create new item types came from the variety of character achievements introduced in the last couple of upgrades. As achievement details become more involved, the designers wanted great environment diversity to spice up the gameplay. "As we create more and more maps with these achievement packs," Jungels wrote, "we want our level designers to have more to work with in terms of giving their settings a unique look."In order to diversity new levels, the Team Fortress 2 designers asked themselves questions concerning matters such as how to evolve existing assets without creating too many new set pieces (thereby increasing development time), creating unique experiences, and how to ensure environment versatility so that only important changes, rather than time-consuming superficial details, are made in future updates....

Official WoW site WorldOfWarCraft.com brings word that the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion for Blizzard Entertainment's World of WarCraft MMO will introduce achievements into the world of Azeroth."World of Warcraft's achievements system will launch with more than 500 individual achievements covering every aspect of gameplay, including world exploration, PvE, PvP, professions, and character development," wrote the company on their official site. "From the purely whimsical to the truly epic, there will be something for everyone. Some achievements come with in-game rewards such as tabards, vanity pets, and titles. All of these rewards are purely cosmetic and just for fun, but you'll certainly stand out when you proudly display them."Given the number of hours WoW fanatics spend in their favorite virtual world, Blizzard has already foreseen that 500 achievements probably won't be enough. "And don't fret about running out of achievements anytime soon," continues the site. "The list is easily expandable, so you can expect additional achievements with each new World of Warcraft content update."Achievement details will be accessible via a new button on your action bar. Clicking the button opens your achievement window, which details your total points for all the achievements you've completed; and a name, description, point value, completion date, and progress bar (if applicable) for each achievement. Similar to quests, players can choose which achievements to actively track.The evolving achievement list will encompass a variety of different types and categories, ranging from simple assignments such as receiving a haircut to slaying one of each race in PvP factions. "Some achievements are progressive," explains the site, "for example, once you complete an achievement to collect 10 vanity pets, you might next be asked to collect 25. Finally, meta achievements unlock when you complete other achievements -- unlocking all World Exploration achievements ... unlocks a World Explorer meta achievement."For more details regarding what to expect from WoW's achievements, visit WorldOfWarCraft.com....

Team Fortress 2 stands out as one of the best competitive shooting games around. From its cartoon-inspired graphics to the weapon variety and class balances, TF2 is the go-to game for a high-action and a lively time. However, all the fun comes to a screeching halt when Valve releases a new class update, complete with some extremely difficult achievements that go toward unlocking special weapons. Two class updates were released so far to date, the most recent being for the Pyro class. Both releases gave rise to a flood of players rushing to unlock all the weapons and a huge number of achievement grinding servers to help expedite the task. As a result, almost all the fun is drained from Team Fortress 2 for a while following a class update. Big Download hosts a guide that helps players earn their achievements through both normal gameplay and artificially set-up circumstances, but we don't pretend to ignore some of the horror stories the mechanizations of achievement grinding brings. Does the process of earning achievements and getting new, powerful weapons ruining the long-term Team Fortress 2 experience? Are less hardcore players left out for not having the time or patience to grind for achievements? Sound-off after the jump....

Rock, Paper, Shotgun has since its inception set the standard of excellence for intelligent PC gaming-related blogging. A recent piece there called "Pyro Maniacs: Achieving Nothing in TF2" is no exception. In the article, RPS regular Alec Meer describes his experience logging into a Team Fortress 2 server designed specifically for grinding achievements. There was no legitimate competitive gameplay on this server. No, it was just an elaborate "obstacle course" for nailing achivements as fast as humanly possible. And if that's not horrific enough on its own, the conduct of the players on the server took digital douchebaggery to a whole new level.It's a story about the very worst the community has to offer -- achievement grinding that makes Asian MMOs look tame by comparison, immature shouting matches filled with obscenities and latent insecurities. It's everything that's wrong with modern gaming, all in one article. A must-read....

Your daily wrap-up of the hottest stories in PC gaming in the last 24 hours. Call of Duty 5 news reveals "new" military theatreComputer and Video Games has become the first web site to reveal the first details on the next game in Activision's Call of Duty shooter franchise. The game is subtitled World at War and as expected is being developed by Treyarch. It uses the Call of Duty 4 engine as created by Infinity Ward. While Activision had stated the game would be in a new military theater the story states that's isn't exactly true; the game will go back to the familiar WWII setting but will take place in the Pacific theater of war (with a side trip back to Europe to see the fall of Berlin by Russian forces). Alone in the Dark completed, hits shelves later this monthAtari and Eden Games' Alone in the Dark has gone gold. All work on the game is finished, and the discs are being pressed. It will be available at retail on June 20th in Europe and June 24th in North America. The extravagant limited edition package will be released on those days as well. Shipping this week: Hulk Smash!While releases this week are lighter than usual, a smashing new title is hitting PC (we get paid per lame joke here apparently). Based on the new film surrounding the popular Marvel character, The Incredible Hulk hits PC on Tuesday as well as the rest of the week's releases that include the first downloadable episode of GameCock's film noir style action adventure game, Insecticide and a free content expansion for EVE Online. Achievements coming to World of Warcraft?One of the Xbox 360's biggest innovations is the use of "Achievements", those cool goals in every Xbox 360 game that can be made with points added to a player's Gamertag score. Valve has added similar achievements to Team Fortress 2. Now comes world that Blizzard might be planning to add something like Achievements to its hit MMO World of Warcraft. ...

One of the Xbox 360's biggest innovations is the use of "Achievements", those cool goals in every Xbox 360 game that can be made with points added to a player's Gamertag score. Valve has added similar achievements to Team Fortress 2. Now comes world that Blizzard might be planning to add something like Achievements to its hit MMO World of Warcraft.According to Deathknight.info the Achievement system is currently in beta and there is no word on when it might go live in the game itself. There's also no word on how gaining Achievements will help the player beyond points although it might be used to gain certain special in-game items. There's also no word on if Achievements will be released via a patch or if we will have to wait for the game's second commercial expansion pack Wrath of the Lich King.[Via WoWInsider]...

It's finally here! The Team Fortress 2 update we've all been waiting for has finally arrived, bringing with it the new Goldrush map, Medic achievements and brand new Medic weapons -- which are the first of many more to come for the other classes. So load up your Steam client and start the free patch, it won't take you very long unless you start playing the game. If you do that, then expect to be spending quite a few hours absorbed in the new gametype on Goldrush.A complete list of all the crazy Medic achievements can be found over on this official Valve webpage, if you're interested....

GameSpot shared some initial impressions of Fallout 3 with the world at large, and noted that XBox 360 owners aren't the only folks who will get to senselessly grind -- err, heroically work -- towards Achievements. PC users will be able to earn Achievement points via Games for Windows Live.Note that you can acquire Achievement points with a free Silver membership; you don't need to pay $50 for a Gold one. In fact, since Fallout 3 has no multi-player, there's no need to invest in a Gold membership at all, unless you've got the money to blow for no reason. If that's the case, more power to ya!The article also goes into detail about Fallout 3's immersive character creation process, combat, user interface, and the different ways you can use your canine companion Dogmeat (a throwback to the first Fallout) for various tasks. Apart from the Achievements bit, though, most of the content is old news. Then again, a fresh perspective is always nice if you just can't get enough Fallout....