Today in classic Blizzard fashion they announced that Diablo 3 would be delayed to early 2012. Can’t say I’m very surprised as Blizzard never releases any game without at least a dozen or so delays.

“With every game we make, the temptation is always very strong to launch as soon as possible. However, we didn’t put so many years of work into Diablo III to release a game that was almost ready,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “The beta test is going very well, and we look forward to making the most of the extra time we’re taking to deliver an experience that lives up to our vision for the game and the expectations of our players. Next year is going to be an incredibly busy one for Blizzard, and we hope an incredibly fun one for Blizzard gamers.”

Due to the delay, Blizzard will extend the closed beta tests and possibly add more testers in the future. Additional testing phases, as well as further details regarding the launch plans for the game, will be announced on the Diablo III website.

The next major content update, Ascension, is heading to MapleStory next week on September 28th. Following the huge Chaos update that took place over the course of the summer in multiple phases, Ascension will be a single update that will rise out of the ashed of Chaos.

The latest patch update will revamp three of the old classes, warriors, magicians and bowmen as they receive new skills and a graphical update. A new dungeon called Monster Park will become available for groups of five to explore.

New quests for whose who are married will be added as well as gifts for those couples who periodically renew their vows. Three new Party-Quests have been added with six others being updated.

To celebrate the Ascension update, new in-game events have been added which players can view on the in-game Events Calendar.

Grinding in MMORPGs is like death and taxes in real-life, it’s the only thing you can guarantee.  Some people don’t mind it, while other like me believe it’s the bane of existence in MMORPGs, however you rarely hear an argument for grinding. Today Spinks, over at Spinksville, made the statement asking, “Who are these people who want difficult MMOs?“, followed up by this statement in defense of grinding in MMORPGs.

The one unique selling point for MMOs has always been the virtual world and being able to be part of a virtual community. Pushing hardcore game mechanics on top of that has never really been a comfortable fit. Activities that busy people around the game world are good, especially if they are thematic. This is why we shouldn’t be so down on the concept of grinds.

To catch you up, over the past few days there has been much debate in the MMO blogosphere about what makes MMOs fun and one of the prevailing arguments has been the challenge of it. However after the statements above it seems Mrs. Spinks not only doesn’t care for any sort of challenge, but she’s more than fine with grinding away on mindless quests.

So I ask Spinks, Who are these players who prefer mindless grinding over any sort of challenge? I doubt Spinks is the only one with this type of opinion, but isn’t the main reason we play video games because they’re challenging? What’s challenging about killing 10 rabbits or delivering a letter across town? Absolutely nothing.

When looking at video gaming as a whole, MMORPGs are the only genre where you spend the majority of your time grinding. I get developers have to add content to slow players progression through the game and keep them playing, but how about some challenging quest or content players enjoy so much they won’t mind repeating.

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Nexon has announced the official release date of Dragon Nest as September 28th and will included the United States, Canada and Oceania regions. As part of the official launch Dragon Nest the level cap will be raised to level 32, include a new central town and introduce new dungeons.

Players who participated in open beta will retain their characters and all items as expected.  Ten new dungeons will be introduced and 250 new achievements will be added as well.  New PvP ladder shop gear will be available also for players already at the max level and new faction vendors will make their first appearance.

To help celebrate the launch of Dragon Nest a series of in-game events will kick of on launch day which will award players with empowerment points, extra XP, cash item giveaways and more.

Not only is Mytheon shutting down services, but they announced it almost two months ago and it seems no one noticed. Talk about a flop. I only learned about it now when I read it on Massively, but it was announced on the official forums back on July 27th.

Mytheon is a property of  UTV Ignition Games, who were recently acquired by Disney.  Since the acquisition both Mytheon and Faxion have been shutdown, Faxion completely, but Mytheon is still running its servers, although not allowing any new registrations.

Both titles were only launched a few months ago, six months for Mytheon and four for Faxion, but it seems Disney didn’t really care to invest any time or money into either and just shut them down instead. Maybe the whole Greek gods and  Heaven vs Hell mythology of each games didn’t vibe with Disney’s image.

New information has been released today about Gamania’s upcoming action MMO, Core Blaze, via the Gamania Game Show in Taiwan as well as a new gameplay video.

As I’m not very familiar with what information has been released so far, I decided to just list all the key points of the press release, so don’t get mad at me if I listed something that wasn’t new.

• Core Blase will fully support gamepads and was designed to support them from the start of development.
• Players will be able to use any weapons with their character, potentially mastering all four styles, sword/shield, great sword, dual blade and long bow.
• Quests will vary depending on time, weather and the players progress. For example an area might be inaccessible when it’s sunny out, but when it starts to rain and the river water rises, players will be able to reach the area.
• Core Blaze is set for release in Asian territories in 2012 while North America has not been determined yet.

Below you can see some gameplay footage of Core Blaze that demonstrates some of the quests that vary depending on the weather.

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Maybe not the exact date, but today Trion Worlds revealed that RIFT patch 1.5, Ashes of History, will be deployed to servers sometime next week. Ashes of History is the fifth major content update to RIFT since launching a little over 6 months ago and you can check our our patch 1.5 preview here, which was posted yesterday.

But incase you just want a quick run down, here are the major points.

• Planar Attunement – Advance beyond level 50 with Planar Attunement. Every quest completed and planespawn slain brings you closer to your next planar upgrade.
• Chronicles – Teams of two players (or one, if you’ve got the gear) can take on Rift Chronicles, exploring breathtaking dungeons — including Greenscale’s Blight, Hammerknell, and the Chronicles of Attunement—in fun, story-driven adventures!
• New Warfront: Library of the Runemasters – PvP combat erupts in Hammerknell’s Library of the Runemasters. Race the enemy faction to control Dwarven secrets, and rise through the ranks in this pulse-pounding new Warfront.
• Master Dungeon – Darkening Deeps now sports a Master Dungeon mode. Rebalanced for elite groups of Ascended, the Master Dungeon holds epic challenges and epic rewards.
• Veteran Rewards – Subscribers earn rewards the longer they play Rift, including special gear, a personal vendor, and a portable mailbox.
• AddOns Beta – Customize your play with new AddOns Beta, fan-created mods for your Rift user interface.

EA announced today they are teaming up with Aeria Games to distribute EA’s free-to-play games. EA, whose own portal play4free.com hasn’t really taken off, is partnering up with Aeria Game for more exposure.

The first title to launch on Aeria’s portal is Battlefield Heroes, a F2P third-person shooter, with more titles appearing in the future such as Need for Speed World, BattleForge, Lord of Ultima and other EA Free2Play titles.

We are thrilled to add EA titles to our portfolio of games, and what better game to launch with to celebrate this partnership than Battlefield Heroes,” said Lan Hoang, Chief Executive Officer, Aeria Games. “EA continues to champion the free-to-play space and their Play4Free games deliver quality, diversity and fun from recognizable IPs so we look forward to supporting their titles through our network resulting in access to millions of additional new power gamers.

“Distribution of Battlefield Heroes on Aeria Games’ Network is a natural next step as we expand the Play4Free brand,” said Sean Decker, Vice President of Play4Free. “Aeria Games is a frontrunner in the free-to-play games business and our titles will benefit tremendously as they reach the ever-growing global market.”

Good move for EA if you ask me and a huge pickup for Aeria Games. Now EA just needs to drop Origin and get with Valve’s Steam.

The Diablo 3 beta kicks off today and the NDA has been dropped, so those invited can post and talk about anything they like. Invitations are now being sent out, but don’t worry if you don’t get one, Blizzard will be setting up some promotions and giveaways in the near future, so you’ll get a second change.

What are you still reading this for? Go check if you got a key already

Today Blizzard released a preview of World of Warcraft patch 4.3 and of the new upcoming raid, which will pit players against the massive Deathwing. For the most part, the preview talks about the lore behind Deathwing and how the heroes of Azeroth will finally get their chance to bring him down, but some information about the actual raid was revealed.

First it will be a 10 and 25-person raid with three levels of difficulty to choose from, like any other raid, but that’s where similarities end. The assault on Deathwing will be massive and is comprised of two unique encounters taking place across the lands of Azeroth. Players will take to the skies, parachuting out of soaring gunships as they attack Deathwind mid-flight and try to strip away his armor exposing his molten flesh beneath.  Those that succeed will be plunged in the depths of the Maelstrom for the final encounter.

No other info was revealed however we have some images below of the Deathwing Dragon Soul raid below.

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