sckeener writes "DriveThruRPG has just announced that it will be selling all of WotC's 3.5 Edition D&D products in e-book format - over 90 books. Wizards has elected not to make the three core rulebooks for Dungeons & Dragons available as eBooks at this time, but almost every other current Dungeons & Dragons title will be available from DriveThruRPG. New titles are scheduled to release one each weekday on DriveThruRPG: Some of the titles to be released first include: Book of Vile Darkness, Heroes of Horror, Arms and Equipment Guide, d20 Apocalypse, Champions of Ruin, Complete Arcane, Unearthed Arcana, Masters of the Wild and Book of Challenges. The books are still full price and are DRM protected." I'd be happier about this if they were even slightly discounted, but it's a good step. Heroes of Horror is worth every penny.

The rumours have been swirling since last night, when MMOG discussion site F13 posted the surprising news that Blizzard plans to make MMOGs of Starcraft and Diablo. Turns out that while the possibility still exists, that's not exactly accurate. The CessPit has some of the slides from Vivendi's presentation, (courtesy of SirBruce). The last of these would seem to show the mere possibility (not confirmation) of expansion into the Massive and console markets for the company's intellectual properties. However, this is coupled with a flat denial by lead designer Rob Pardo: "Nothing in that rumor is true in regards to Blizzard. If I had to guess, there was some confusion between what Vivendi has planned for its game division versus what Blizzard has planned. While Blizzard is owned by Vivendi, their game division operates separately from Blizzard." So, while not out of the question, I find it unlikely we'll be hearing about World of Starcraft any time soon.

An anonymous reader writes "bit-tech has up a short comparison between Final Fantasy VII and Oblivion. While Oblivion is touted as the latest and greatest PC-based RPG, Final Fantasy VII is held in the minds of many gamers as the best RPG of all time. From the article: 'At the time of its release, nearly ten years ago, FFVII received rave reviews from the press and the public, and it has a claim to being the best loved Final Fantasy game ... In a Top 100 Games of all time, it would be up there in the single digits. It is, by all accounts, Sergeant Pepper-Citizen Kane great. If something is great, it should be great whenever you pick it up -- buy a fresh copy of Pepper or Kane now and they'll still blow you away: they were great in '67 and '41, and they're great now. Is the same true of FFVII?'"

Like many Shadowrun players, Philip Richardson felt frustrated by the announcement that the SR title for the 360 was essentially Counter-Strike with elves. Mr. Richardson, though, happens to be the Program Manager at Microsoft's CRM team. He was invited by the folks at FASA studios to give the game a try, and GameSetWatch reports that he's actually pretty pleased with the situation after all. From the post: "Yes folks: it's share price increasingly good... Artwork: Feels like Shadowrun. Good Job! The SR universe has a lot of different types of artwork (as Tim pointed out yesterday). From the gritty stuff in the early source books to the more cartoonish work in the more recent editions. Gameplay: Feels like Shadowrun."

Via GameSetWatch, an article on the Guilded Lilies site interviewing a unique Oblivion modder. Phoenix Amon has taken on the task of rebinding every book in Oblivion, as well as spell-checking the documents within. From the article: "Q: How much time do you spend modding, and do you enjoy it more than playing games? A: I spend more time modding than playing recently, but I enjoy both a lot. I wouldn't have bought Oblivion if it hadn't been moddable, but that's because I knew from experience that I don't like a lot of Bethesda's game design choices. It's not a deciding factor for all games."

SirBruce writes "Mmogchart.com has been updated to Version 20.0! This is a major update, with updated numbers for many games, most notably World of Warcraft, Eve Online, RuneScape, and most of NCSoft's titles. I've also added three new MMOGs to the tracking data: Tibia, The Matrix Online, and Dungeons & Dragons Online. I've also removed the old subscriber data for Ragnarok Online in Japan, and unified the various total subscriptions charts. Also new to this update is preliminary market data for Asian MMOGs (including Ragnarok Online) that are commonly reported in terms of Peak Concurrent Users and Average Concurrent Users. Given the differences in pricing models, many of these games are not subscription-based, so a direct comparison with subscription MMOGs cannot be made. My thanks to everyone who helped with this update, and thanks to those of you who waited patiently for this update!"

Teppy writes "The third version of the unique Egyptian MMOG A Tale in the Desert is now available. Changes from previous Tales include the new Discipline of Harmony, a game-wide Events system, and 'Principles'. Principles consist of 49 snack-sized challenges that provide a gentle introduction to a hugely complex game. Other enhancements include regional chat, community-unlockable Tests, dozens of new and changed Skills, and of course the Legacy Tests designed by the Oracles of A Tale in the Desert II. Windows, Linux, and OSX clients are available for download."

A lot of the big sites have given out their awards for various 'best in show' categories. Bioshock got the nod for 'Game of the Show' from Gamespot, Gamespy, and IGN. From Gamespy's coverage: "I was completely captivated with BioShock like no other game at E3 2006. Is it an RPG? Is it an action game? Is it an adventure? BioShock looks like it has a little of everything: a captivating story, beautiful environments to explore, gorgeous graphics, gameplay that crosses multiple genres... it's hard for me to imagine anyone not seeing the haunting images of a protector escorting that little girl through the unique underwater setting of Rapture and not being immediately hooked. Considering Irrational's history with Looking Glass and the System Shock titles, what I saw of the game at E3 this year vaulted it to the top of my wish list. " 1up gave the nod to Spore.

neutralino writes "Rocky Mountain News has a story about a computer game based on the Columbine massacre. From the article: 'Called Super Columbine Massacre RPG, the game mixes cartoonish scenes with photographs of Harris and Klebold, pictures taken from newspapers and television stations and excerpts from their writings... [The game's creator] said he wanted to create something profoundly unique and confrontational that would promote a real dialogue on the subject of school shootings.'"

The 360 is playing host to some non-traditional titles in the near future. Huxley is an MMO, one of the first on the console, and combines MMORPG elements with FPS shooting. From Gamespot's Huxley hands-on: "We saw a residential area that has room for 5,000 players, and told that you'll be able to purchase your own housing in the game." Meanwhile, Mass Effect is Bioware's next great opus, an RPG with energy weapons. From 1up's Mass Effect hands-on: "Everything for the E3 demo was in-engine, and the graphics are impressive. The dialogue scenes revealed characters with lifelike eye movements that conveyed real emotion. Excellent voice acting, distinctive music, and a beautifully formed world with rich, detailed environments show real promise."

At this point, if you're at all interested in online gaming, you probably recognize the 'MMOG' abbreviation. Massively Multiplayer Online Games are one of the most popular genres in gaming right now, and today I have impressions from two titles that do things slightly differently from the norm. Final Fantasy XI has been out for three years on the PC, two years on the PS2, and as of last month made its debut on the Xbox 360. The first Massive title to grace Microsoft's next-gen console is, regrettably, starting to show its age. More sprightly is the standalone expansion to last year's Guild Wars, simply entitled Factions. It adds new content and classes to a very popular Player vs. Player (PVP) title, and manages to meet the high expectations set by the original game's launch. Read on for my impressions of Final Fantasy XI for the Xbox 360, and Guild Wars: Factions.

With the Draenei out of the bag, the news sites have taken some time to reacquaint themselves with the new corners of Azeroth. From the Gamespot hands-on report: "To navigate these vast new areas, the expansion will add flying mounts, such as winged dragonlike characters that can run along the ground even more quickly than the fastest epic mounts in the game and also take to the air at any time and fly anywhere. Though you'll need to have a character at level 70 to get your own flying mount, you'll enjoy increased freedom of movement--and apparently, Blizzard's content team is also designing out-of-the-way pockets of content and monster camps to be discovered by adventurous players who don't mind exploring the new areas." More impressions below if you Read More.

Thought it's not terribly surprising, it's nice to hear. Final Fantasy XIII has been announced for the PlayStation 3. It actually sounds like there will be three separate titles: A traditional RPG, a mobile game, and a 'versus' title. From the article: "FINAL FANTASY XIII. They pulled a serious bait-and-switch on us. Sword-and-gun-wielding heroine who looks like Yuna, flipping her way around a high-tech, futuristic world ... Motomu Toriyama will direct the game. And apparently FFXIII isn't the only game coming out of this universe--there's a, uh, mobile game too. Oh. It's Final Fantasy Agito XIII ... Final Fantasy Versus XIII?" Additional announcements include a new Crystal Chronicles and Dragon Quest for the Wii, and a Final Fantasy VII universe title for the PSP.

It's been about six months since we took the pen and paper gaming industry's temperature. There have been some important product releases since November, many of them well worth looking at. Steve Jackson Games continues to release books for its Fourth Edition of GURPS, and Wizards of the Coast works to expand the appeal of both the core Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) setting and the Eberron campaign world. Read on for some highlights from the world of tabletop gaming.

Gamespot has details on Bethesda's response to the ESRB for their (some would argue) knee-jerk reaction to fan-added elements of Oblivion. From the article: "There is no nudity in Oblivion without a third party modification. In the PC version of the game only - this doesn't apply to the Xbox 360 version - some modders have used a third party tool to hack into and modify an art archive file to make it possible to create a mesh for a partially nude (topless) female that they add into the game. Bethesda didn't create a game with nudity and does not intend that nudity appear in Oblivion." They go on to state they submitted a 60-page document detailing the violence in the game. If anyone is at fault here, I think it's the ESRB.

Via Gamasutra, a mysterious outline on the FASA website of a quartet of Shadowrunners. This likely indicates that the much rumoured Shadowrun title for a Microsoft console will be making an appearance sometime soon. Hopefully even next week. From the article: "If true, this project will mark the first American Shadowrun video game in over twelve years, following games for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Genesis, which were developed by Beam Software and BlueSky Software, respectively." Ahh, the SNES version of Shadowrun. Being a Dog Shaman was never so much fun.

kukyfrope writes "The long awaited sequel to the popular RPG Kingdom Hearts finally hit North America late last month, and in just those few days easily outsold all other games in March. GameDaily examines why nobody can resist the magic of Disney and Square together in Kingdom Hearts II and why the Kingdom Hearts series has been so successful."

The rich IP backgrounds of Square/Enix and the Disney Corporation were thrown together for the first time in 2002. The Square-developed game, entitled Kingdom Hearts, surprised players with a story that blended two very different flavours into a compelling whole. The extent to which that game drew on the respective company's products made for a breathtakingly large world, and a storyline twisty enough to satisfy even the most jaded RPG player. Unfortunately, weak gameplay detracted from the overall experience of the unique title. The sequel, Kingdom Hearts II, picks up the pieces where the original left off and makes noticeable improvements in both story and gameplay. Read on for my impressions of a solid RPG that does fan service like no other title out there.

errorjustin writes "More Pre-E3 news is coming out - Bethesda's 2006 line-up has been revealed, and on the list is are PS3 and PSP ports of Oblivion. Both are currently slated for a November release, which further backs up Sony's insistence that the PS3 will launch in November. A formal announcement is expected in a couple weeks at E3."

alphaneutrino writes to mention a C|Net article discussing some of the recent problems the World of Warcraft playerbase has experienced. From the article: "'Being a system administrator myself, I have some understanding of what goes on in a corporate data center,' said Evgeny Krevets, a sometimes-frustrated WoW player. 'I don't know Blizzard's system setup. What I do know is that if I kept performing 'urgent maintenance' and taking the service down without warning for eight-hour periods, I would be out of a job.' Blizzard blames some of the problems--such as the disconnection, for several hours on Friday, of players linked to several servers--on AT&T, its network provider. (AT&T did not respond to a request for comment.) "