140 – The Instance: It's Wintertime In Warsong

Blizzard All Over GDC Week
The annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco took place this week, and the makers of the games we play and the games we anticipate came out and talked. A lot. Our friend Curt Schilling, for instance, talked to G4′s Adam Sessler about everything from what 38 Studios is up to to… well, you’ll have to listen for yourself. Anyhow, Blizzard was everywhere this week, giving us new information about the past, releasing tools for use today, and speculating about the future.

More From The GDC
Also at the GDC, Companies called OnLive and Gaikai made a splash this week with announcements that they’re within a year of streaming games to browsers in such a way that could handle games such as World Of Warcraft or EVE Online. To quote Massively’s James Egan, they believe that this technology “will allow low-end PCs to play high-end games via streaming technology, piping in a game experience where all the heavy (graphics) lifting is done on the company’s servers. It’s a significant step forward in gaming provided it lives up to expectations, and the fact that it’s fully cross-platform means that Mac users will be able to play PC titles never ported for the OS. OnLive isn’t alone in wanting to make games more accessible though, particularly when it comes to MMOs.”

Just How Many Games Can They Create?
This week, BlizzPlanet looked at Blizzard’s jobs postings, and reached the conclusion that a 5th game being developed. 1. This brand-new game is not a World of Warcraft expansion, and it is not related to the Next-Gen MMO. 2. In the present, the brand-new game is using the World of Warcraft engine merely for testing purposes. 3. The Client Software Engineer job opening is to hire the person that will have the responsibility to develop an engine from scratch for this game. This new engine will be built depending on the skill and interest of the person hired for this position. 4. Whether this game is based on the three major franchises (Warcraft, Starcraft or Diablo) or a new IP, that remains unknown.

Don’t Miss Your Dose Of Gladiator Blood
Upper Deck released the eighth, and latest expansion pack to the WoW TCG this week: Blood Of The Gladiators. This is the one with:
 * The Epic Purple Shirt.
 * The Sandbox Tiger, which is a toy like the D.I.S.C.O. ball, and will allow you to ride on a spectral tiger in place, like a rocking horse.
 * The Foam Swords Rack. This allows players around you to take foam swords from the rack and beat each other up, and it declares a winner!

Town Cryer
It’s an all-calls Town Cryer this week. But next week, we’re loading up a ton of e-mails. A ton!

Drop Of The Week
Dungeon Defense

It’s an iPhone game, from a developer friend of Scott’s, that’s a twist on the tower defense idea for dungeon fans.