warcraft-iii posts

In October 2009, the somewhat mysterious lead developer of the Warcraft III mod Defense of the Ancients known only as "IceFrog" announced that he had been hired by Valve and was leading a team that was making "some very exciting stuff that you guys will love." Since then details of what that team has been working on have not been revealed.

However it looks like work on the unnamed project is picking up steam. The Twitter web page for voice actor John St. John (best known for his work on Duke Nukem 3D) had a post from the actor stating, "Had a great time in Seattle last week recording for DotA. The guys at ValveSoftware are awesome!" If voice work is being done for this project it's likely that production is in full swing. "IceFrog" stated last April on the game's official web site, "We'll be making an announcement soon." John St. John states in that same Twitter message that will be at PAX Prime in early September, and Valve is listed on the PAX site as an exhibitor. Could there be an official announcement revealing the game at the show?

[Via Joystiq]

Several months ago, it was revealed that "IceFrog" the rather reclusive current developer of the mega-popular Warcraft III mod Defense of the Ancients, had been hired by Valve to lead a team at the game developer. He has still been updating DoTA since that announcement but said at the time, " I finally have all the resources needed to do some very exciting stuff that you guys will love."

Now a new Q&A at the official DoTA web site hints that we could learn more about that project sooner than anticipated. "IceFrog" states, "We'll be making an announcement soon actually, and based on the feedback I've been getting since the last mention, I'm sure you all will be as excited as I am." Hmm...sounds like an E3 reveal might be in the works.

Oh, and just how many players does DoTA actually have worldwide? "IceFrog's" rough estimate is "to be somewhere between 7-11 million." That's not counting China which he says "is about 40-50 (percent) of the worldwide audience." So the total audience could be as high as 22 million.

[Via Rock Paper Shotgun]

You may have seen us report that Nvidia offered up new graphics drivers for its GeForce series of graphics card earlier this week. Well if you have downloaded them and also have the multiplayer beta for StarCraft II installed, either don't play the beta or uninstall the drivers and reinstall the earlier 196.21 version.

According to a post the game's official message board, playing the beta for Blizzard's upcoming RTS game with the 196.75 version of Nvidia's GeForce drivers can cause the fan control feature in the drivers to not work well and actually overheat your graphics card. This issue apparently affects other Blizzard games such as World of Warcraft.

Update: Nvidia has now removed the 196.75 drivers from its web site.

Amazon.com has the occasional one day sale that might be of interest to our audience. Today their one day sale deals with the "Battle Chest" game collections from Blizzard Entertainment. For today only three of these collections are on sale for 50 percent off.

If you haven't bought these games already you can get the Diablo Battle Chest (Diablo II and its expansion plus strategy guide) for $19.98, the Warcraft III Battle Chest (the original game, the expansion plus strategy guides) for $19.98 and the StarCraft Battle Chest (the original game, the expansion plus strategy guides) for just $9.98. That's 50 percent off their normal price.

The current lead developer behind the popular Warcraft III mod Defense of the Ancients has made the suprising announcement that he is "now leading a team at Valve". Presumably he means the same Valve that has mostly worked on first person shooter game titles like Half-Life and Left 4 Dead. In his announcement on the official DotA page "IceFrog" (that's the only name he goes by) he stats that now he has "all the resources needed to do some very exciting stuff that you guys will love. I look forward to revealing more specific details when the time is right."

This would certainly be a change of pace for Valve if they decide to develop a DotA-like game. The mod has become an inspiration for a number of current and upcoming commercial games including Demigod, Heroes of Newerth and League of Legends (who have former DotA team members as part of their dev team).

[Via Shacknews]

With BlizzCon coming up in less than three weeks (August 21-22 to be exact), the various sponsors of Blizzard's massive fan event are gearing up for their own promotions. Intel is doing what they can with special contests that will be held both before and during BlizzCon. No, Intel isn't offering trips to the event but they are giving folks a chance to win some gaming laptops from Asus if they pick the winners of the three main BlizzCon tournaments (World of Warcraft, StarCraft and WarCraft III) By the way, Blizzard plans to stream the BlizzCon tournaments in both SD and HD for free on the BlizzCon web site.

If you happen to be lucky enough to go to BlizzCon, Intel will also be running contests on the show floor as well including giving away five Intel Core i7 processors each day of the event. You can head over to the Intel blog site for more info.

One of the few remaining pro gaming tournament organizations with tournaments in the US is the World Cyber Games. Recently the organization announced which games will be the official tournament titles that will be used in the WCG championships.

Some of the games have been used before like Counter-Strike 1.6, Starcraft: Brood War, and Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. The WCG will also use the PC version of FIFA 09, Carom3D (a billiards title) and the MMO game Red Stone. In an unusual move, the WCG have also added the racing game Trackmania Nations Forever as a new official title in tournaments. Regional and national tournaments will be held throughout the year all over the world. The WCG World Championships will be held in Chengdu, China on Nov. 11-15

Independent Minds aims to take various aspects of indie gaming and present them to you each week. From game round-ups to design elements to interviews with prominent members of the scene, it's an exploration of what makes indie gaming great as well as what makes someone an indie.

For the game developer, nothing is more important than the longevity of a game. Will people be playing your opus a year after release? Ten years after release? The answer should be yes, but the ways to extend the life of a game are often overlooked. There are many different methods to add replayability, including multiple story paths, procedurally generated content, and non-linear gameplay. However, the best way, and the one that has ensured the survival of games like Unreal Tournament or Half-Life, is allowing players to fiddle with the content themselves. The more your players can tweak the game, the more they will play it, and that's a lesson all developers should take to heart.

With the current economic situation you would think that there would be less money to pay professional gamers. Not in Korea. According to Sk-gaming.com, Warcraft III gamer Jae Ho 'Moon' Jang (the guy in the Star Trek outfit) just signed a new contract for a new team that gives him a whopping $486,500 for three years.

That amount is the higher ever for a Warcraft III gamer and the second highest given for any gamer in Korea. The number is topped only by Yoon Yeoi "NaDa" Lee. The Starcraft pro player signed a three year $521,250 contract back in 2007.

[Via Joysiq]

The quest to attain the title of "most popular mod" is a difficult and arguably meaningless one. Ask the devotees in any mod's camp, and they're sure to tell you that their mod of choice is the only correct answer. What mod, then, is the most popular mod in the world? Counter-Strike is a possibility. First released in 1999, Counter-Strike has ten years of experience behind it, and an exponentially larger fan base. Team Fortress boasts just as many dedicated gamers, if not more.

These and other mods are undoubtedly popular, but according to an analysis on Gamasutra written in June 2008, Defense of the Ancients, a strategy-RPG hybrid fittingly developed for Blizzard Entertainment's strategy-RPG WarCraft III, is the most popular "free, non-supported game mod in the world."