It's no surprise that Magtheridon, a boss in the World of Warcraft, is a pain. But while a recent bug fix has (finally) made this nearly un-killable boss hunt a little more tolerable, Blizzard is announcing the possible schedule for their adjustments to help further balance out Magtheridon, along with the equally notorious Gruul, another boss. As Blizzard spokesman Crezax stated (over at the official WoW Europe forums), you can expect these changes in patch 2.1.0:

Right now, the changes are planned for 2.1.0. We'd like to see the changes on the PTR (Public Test Release) before pushing them live.

BBC likes LOTRO better than WoW

The BBC recently published their preview of Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar, and I have to point out that I'm not surprised that their man liked it better than World of Warcraft. You see, Blizzard doesn't have that one quality that John Ronald Reuel Tolkien had: being British. Of course the BBC is going to root for the home team. Regardless, the write up is still pretty sound, and I have to respect someone who knows where the real fun of playing comes from:

Once I'd chosen my human champion, I was thrown into the game, which starts with an "instance" - essentially a self-contained adventure - that familiarises a player with the combat, movement and questing system.

Bold virtual worlds are opening up to gamers

IF THERE was a main message coming out of the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco last week, it was this: The industry is steering itself toward the direction of MySpace and YouTube.

There was a palpable sense that gaming is heading for a sea change in how titles and platforms use the Internet to connect, customize and create games.

The company that made the biggest splash in this emerging area was Sony, with its announcement of PlayStation Home for its latest console, the PlayStation 3. Phil Harrison, head of Sony Computer Entertainment, introduced the new service, which received a warm response from the crowd.

Part "Second Life" and part Xbox Live, the service puts players in a virtual world where they can interact with fellow users and walk around different areas.

Nethaera clarifies arena team issues

Feeling a bit dazed and confused about how many rotating players are allowed for you to have in an arena team? Well, you're not alone in your confusion as a lot of people have been asking about it - to the point that Blizzard poster Nethaera had to clarify some stuff regarding Arena teams. So to avoid any confusion, we give the floor to Nethaera. He says:

You can have double the number of players. So for a 2 v 2 team you can have 4 people on your team. Two of those would be the benchwarmers. In order for the alternates to get arena points though, they would need to participate in (I believe) 30% of the matches.

So the breakdown of how many members on a team is the following:

2 v 2 Team- 4 players total
3 v 3 Team- 6 players total
5 v 5 Team- 10 players total

How you work out who to put in and when is strictly up to you.

Gulf Coast Convention celebrates geekdom

This past weekend marked the 30th anniversary of Mississippi's largest science fiction and fantasy convention, Coastcon.

Held in Biloxi, visitors found guests, costumes, books, toys and games from your favorite themed shows, video games and movies.

During the day, the convention boasted a large gaming area, catering to card, miniature and video gamers and role-players. They had a good-sized merchant room and art show. A costume contest, charity events and a dance closed out the convention.

When the sun went down, it became more interesting. The convention hotel, located as nearby as a recovering coast would allow, had room parties.

You can usually find these places via flyers or word of mouth. The best way to describe them is the Roman hedonistic stereotype minus vomitoriums.